Day 27: 31 Days of Horror: Onibaba

I don't even know how to explain this film. Onibaba (1963) is a Japanese horror film that is more focused on human greed than anything else. Two women, a mother and her daughter-in-law, are desperate to survive after their son/husband, Kichi, is forcefully inducted into war. In order to survive, the two are stalking and slaying worn-out samurais that they find in fields near their huts. They steal the men's belongings and trade them in for food to a greedy merchant. After the arrival of a surviving soldier, Hachi, in the war, the two learn that Kichi has been killed. The woman begins to mistrust her daughter-in-law soon after Hachi's arrival, believing that she is philandering around with him just so she can leave her to fend for herself on her own. Things get a bit creepy once she tries to scare the girl out of trying to be with Hachi.

This film is artistic and odd. At first, I wasn't sure what I was watching. It didn't seem like a horror film and some things were happening that I just didn't care to watch. However, I couldn't stop watching, something about it was so intriguing to me and I had to find out what was going to happen. I wasn't freaked out at all until the appearance of one thing, which is what got me interested in watching the film in the first place. It was the appearance of the extremely frightening mask pictured above. It kind of makes you think, "What the hell am I looking at?!" I had a nightmare involving this mask and was scared out of the mind when I woke up, thinking I was going to see it staring back at me! I loved the ending of this film because it was awesome.