(The Criterion Collection)ONIBABA-1964-In this strange Japanese kind of ghost story/horror film, a mother (Noboku Otowa) and her daughter in law (Jitsuko Yoshimura) kill wandering samurai to survive during a a civil war while the son-in-law/husband is away fighting.
Trouble starts when a friend, Hachi (Kei Sato) shows up and says their man is dead. After helping them kill, he has sex with the daughter in law. Their affair heats up and the mother doesn't like it. When she meets a wandering samurai wearing an unusual mask, she kills him and takes the mask, wearing it to scare the daughter in law from seeing Hachi, who unbeknownst to them has been killed for desertion. When the older woman tries to remove the mask, everything hits the fan.
This classic spooky supernatural tale was written and directed by Kaneto Shindo. He also wrote screenplays filmed by other directors including Kenji Mizoguchi and Seijun Suzuki.
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