There's hell to pay when East collides with West

J-horror, that genre of Japanese cinema known for its emphasis on psychological tension, supernatural folklore, and atmospheric dread, commonly explores themes of vengeful spirits, curses, and the unsettling intersection of technology and the supernatural. The movement gained international fame in the late 1990s and early 2000s with films like Ringu, Ju-On: The Grudge, and Dark Water. But Onibaba, a predecessor from 1964, set a strong template that those later works would draw inspiration from.

Directed and written by Kaneto Shindō, Onibaba is set in 14th-century feudal Japan during a time of civil war. The film follows the harrowing lives of two women — an older female (Nobuko Otowa) and her daughter-in-law (Jitsuko Yoshimura) — who survive by murdering passing samurai and selling their belongings. Their precarious existence is disrupted when a neighbor, Hachi (Kei Satō), returns from the war and forms a lustful relationship with the younger woman, creating tension and jealousy within the trio. The story spirals into horror when the older woman, desperate to stop the affair, dons a demonic Hannya mask to frighten the younger woman, leading to tragic and unsettling consequences.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Onibaba, conducted earlier this month, click here (if you get an error message, simply refresh the page).

It’s an incredibly simple story, with very few characters, scenes, and locations; yet, it’s riveting in its dark, horrific, and noir-like atmosphere and timeless triangular situations involving two women and one man.

Interestingly, the females are not necessarily depicted as more threatening or immoral than the violent males around them. It’s important to remember that they are destitute, impoverished, hungry, and alone, and women were low in social status in this Japanese era. They aren’t even provided names, unlike the men. Yes, the older woman and her daughter-in-law are cold, cruel, and callous, but these characteristics were required to survive in a time of savagery and suffering.

This film is the antithesis of samurai movies of this era, which celebrated the heroic values and honorable virtues of macho men who went off to battle; in contrast, Onibaba emphasizes covetousness, avarice, and passion.

The score is quite radical: the opening number is a jazzy, contemporary tune, but the main music used in the film employs a percussive, discordant, even guttural pattern of drums, simplistic woodwinds, strings, and some instrument or object that mimics the sound of wood snapped in half.

The movie adopts elements of noir, as evidenced by the high contrast lighting scheme that produces deep darks and shadows, and the presence of two femme fatales who lead men (samurai) into danger. Additionally, the picture employs a healthy dose of subjective camera shots (we’re right down at the women’s level, low in the grass and the mud, watching their prey ahead) as well as visually poetic close-up shots of nature and expressive human faces.

For a 1964 production, the ample nudity is surprising. Americans wouldn’t have been accustomed to seeing topless women in movies until later that decade, after the introduction of the ratings system and the loosening of censorship restrictions.

Onibaba is adapted from a Buddhist parable intended to encourage females to attend religious services. In this contemporary retelling, however, it becomes a warning of the consequences of jealousy, greed, and desire. The film is topical for the 20th century in its indictment of the devastating effects war has on humanity and civilized values. It could also be considered a criticism of how women are treated as objects in Japanese culture. The story can also be interpreted as an allegory about the rape of the natural world and our heartless husking of earth’s resources: Recall how the women kill the men so callously, then strip them clean of anything of value.

The mask and what it reveals underneath could be figurative of the mutilation and defacement of the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, which is what the director reportedly revealed. And perhaps the grasses, which ebb and flow in the wind and move randomly and wildly, symbolize the general disorder and unpredictability of nature itself.

In a Freudian psychological interpretation, the hole could signify the danger and mystery of female sexuality to men. In a wider reading, the Snowblood Apple blog wrote: “As the film progresses, it becomes clear that the hole represents a wider danger for humanity. At various times, people nearly fall into the hole - most notably Hachi, who teeters on the brink of it momentarily, having just been running through the grass in an ecstasy of lust for the younger woman. Various other people fall into it – mostly the unfortunate soldiers who have become the victims of the two predatory women. The hole represents some nemesis or catastrophe that is constantly there for those who are prey to the baser instincts of Man, in the absence of civilization.”

Many claustrophobia spaces exist in Onibaba: Consider the hut the women live in as well as the cave. The filmmakers want us to feel hedged in and trapped, as the women are confined in their condition, despite ironically living in the vast expanse of the open wild.

It may be a simple story, but Onibaba has a lot of meat on its bones that can be stripped away to reveal a marrow of truth that can prove quite satisfying to those willing to explore its deeper meanings. One is the degradation of humanity under pressure. At its heart, Onibaba asks a crucial question: How far will you go when survival is at stake? Amid the chaos of civil war, Onibaba depicts a society where law, order, and compassion have withered. The film reveals how constant conflict strips people of their humanity, reducing them to primal survival instincts and blurring the line between the living and the monstrous.

The dangerous power of envy is another evident theme. When the younger woman begins a sexual relationship with a neighboring man, the older woman’s possessiveness morphs into destructive jealousy. This covetousness propels her to manipulate and terrorize, revealing how personal obsession can become corrosive and damaging in close, isolated relationships.

Rooted in Japanese folklore and Buddhist morality tales, Onibaba also uses the legend of the demon hag and supernatural elements to instill a cautionary tale. The narrative functions as an allegory for karmic consequences, suggesting that immoral deeds — motivated by lust, avarice, and jealousy — inevitably lead to spiritual ruin.

Similar works

• Japanese Kaidan ghost story films, such as Ugetsu (1953) by Kenji Mizoguchi and Kwaidan (1964)
• Woman of the Dunes (1964) and In the Realm of the Senses (1976), also both from Japan
• Knife in the Water (1962)
• Diabolique (1955)
• The Twilight Zone episode The Masks (1964)
• Scary fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm
• Days of Heaven (1978), which also features a love triangle and extreme close-ups of tall grasses and shots of nature
• Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957), also set during a particularly bleak time in human history when death and destruction reigned, and which also includes an ominous omen figure of doom.

Other works by Kaneto Shindō

• The Naked Island (1960)
• Kuroneko (1968)
• Live Today, Die Tomorrow! (1970)
• A Last Note (1995)