ONIBABA takes place in medieval Japan as the country is torn apart by war. Opposing generals set their Samurai warriors against each other and armies kidnap helpless peasant men from their farms and force them to enlist. A young woman (Jitsuko Yoshimura) loses her husband in the war and is forced to scrape together what food and resources she can by teaming up with her mother in law (Nobuko Otowa) to kill samurai warriors who wander through their part of the swamp, strip them of their armor and weapons, and sell the goods on the black market to a crooked local merchant (Taiji Tonoyama). Together, the two women dispose of the samurai bodies in an ominous, mysterious, deep, dark hole hidden in the tall grass surrounding their home.
This daily routine is interrupted when a male peasant named Hachi (Kei Sato) escapes the war and returns home. He simultaneously butts into their morbid business and unabashedly attempts to woo the young woman, much to her mother in law’s disapproval and jealousy.
A chance encounter with a demon-masked samurai general (Jukichi Uno) gives the mother in law an idea for a plan to scare her daughter in law off of the love affair for good, taking advantage of cultural superstition in the process. Unfortunately, the demon mask may not just be a mask, and the superstitions may have something to them.
The story doesn’t really veer into horror territory until the last reel or so, with the arrival of the demon-masked samurai, who is definitely creepy. However, the whole set up puts the viewer ill at ease from the beginning, thanks in part to the eclectic musical score that seems to be at odds with what might normally be considered music. But the unease is mostly due to the setting, what with the restless rustling of the tall grass, the mysterious hole filled with dead samurai bodies, and the way the central characters constantly eye each other with suspicion. When they’re eating, they huddle around their food like abused animals, as if they’re afraid someone’s going to swoop in and take it from them. When they sleep, they keep one eye open.
ONIBABA is further proof that you don’t have to be trashy to be a horror film. This Japanese film has enough over the top drama and eroticism to put the pulpiest novel or grittiest grindhouse flick to shame. But it’s shot in immaculate black and white in magnificent nature settings and every scene takes place in waving grass fields where the blades tower over the heads of the people who live there. So, the horror story unfolds in the shadow of beautiful scenery, which elevates a relatively simple story of lust, murder, jealousy, making the film at once more surreal and more beautiful than many otherwise thematically similar horror flicks, a juxtaposition, which, in turn, makes the horror that much uglier.
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