Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi. The mother disapproves and, when she can't steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.
Onibaba is a visually extraordinary film — Kaneto Shindo's use of the towering susuki grass, the dark pit, and stark black-and-white contrast creates one of cinema's most distinctive physical environments. Cinematographer Kiyomi Kuroda's work is genuinely exceptional, making landscape feel like psychological interiority. The film earns high Novelty for its singular fusion of earthy sexuality, folk-horror, and war-era survival drama — a combination that remains unmistakably its own. The plot is lean and mythic but relatively simple, functioning more as fable than layered narrative. Acting is committed and physical, particularly Nobuko Otowa as the mother, though characterization is deliberately archetypal rather than nuanced. The ending delivers its karmic horror effectively but telegraphs its moral somewhat bluntly, landing as memorable rather than truly devastating.