ONIBABA (1964)
Based on Buddist fables, the film centres around two women, an older woman and her daughter in law in medieval Japan who kill and rob passing soldiers in the long high grasses where they live. Hoping to stop her daughter in law from seeing a returned deserter who lives in a nearby hut, the old woman puts on a demon mask that she takes from a soldier she has killed in the hopes of scaring her daughter in law into not seeing the man......
Full of atmosphere and filmed in black and white, the scenes in the long susuki grass and with the demoness appearing in the darkness are fantastic.
An uneasy sense of isolation runs through the film as the only location of the film is the grass and the river and the talk is of supernatural things.....