"I was twenty-four years old when I made my first film, Pusher (about the Danish drug underworld), and for it I stole everything I could, both visually and technically, from this film and Cannibal Holocaust."

"The first two hours of the film consist mainly of Danish farmers and craftspeople arguing about Christian theology in veritable slow motion; the final six minutes, unless you’re an alien replicant, will have you on your knees, eyes lifted in wonder to the screen."

"Best Lutheran melodrama I’ve ever seen! Fantastically restrained love triangle involving a pastor, his young bride, and his son. Throw in cauldrons full of witchcraft and a mother more sexually suspicious than Mrs. Bates, and you’ve got perfection. The costumes and the performers inhabiting them are more rigid and austere than an unbuttered slice of Danish toast. Uneasily funny, chilling, and timeless."