Afskedens Time on AllMovie

Well-known Danish film producer Per Holst turned director for this muddled psychological melodrama about a civil servant (Ove Sprogøe) who cannot admit to his unfaithful wife (Bergman regular Bibi Andersson) that he has just lost his job. In desperation, the quiet clerk murders the entire family. Again and again. Or is it all in his head? Is the timid civil servant indulging in a stress-relieving fantasy, or his he really a homicidal maniac? Holst, who kept to folksy comedies thereafter, apparently couldn't decide whether he was making a Bergmanesque piece on marital angst or a straightforward crime drama and the end result convinces no one.