"In Onibaba, Kaneto Shindo situates elements of horror and the supernatural within an historical context to illustrate the repercussions of a society (in this instance, feudal Japan) dominated by what he calls the 'primitive beneath the civilized veneer.' Two women who dwell in the reeds eke out a minimal existence by luring wounded samurai to their deaths and selling the spoils of their macabre metier. When one woman's amorous liaison with a neighbor threatens the other woman's livelihood (without this partnership, her survival is dubious), the latter takes decisive action to prevent it. Donning a terrifying battle mask stripped from one of her victims, the old woman lurks in the marshes in a frenzied attempt to keep her young accomplice at home. However, she finds she is unable to remove the mask... What follows is brutally frightening. While maintaining a critical stance in his appraisal of feudal Japan, Shindo also evokes an eerie mood which enhances the horror of Onibaba, his first period piece." Laura Thielen (See also Kuroneko, July 25, the haunting successor to Onibaba.)