Onibaba (film) - Plot

Plot

Two wounded soldiers flee from pursuers on horse in thick reeds which are taller than a man. Suddenly the soldiers are killed by unseen assailants. Two woman appear, take the armour and weapons, and drop the bodies in a hole. The women return to a small hut. The next day they take the armor and weapons to a merchant (Taiji Tonoyama) and trade them for food. The merchant tells them news of a war. A neighbor named Hachi (Kei Sato), who has been at war, returns. The older woman (Nobuko Otowa) asks Hachi about her son, who was forced to be a soldier along with Hachi. The son is the husband of the younger woman (Jitsuko Yoshimura). Hachi says the son was killed.

Hachi helps the two women to kill more soldiers. Hachi seduces the young woman. She sneaks out of her hut every night to have sex with him. The older woman learns of the relationship. She tries to sleep with Hachi, then pleads with him to not take the young woman away since she cannot kill without her help.

One night, while Hachi and the young woman are together, a lost samurai in a demon mask (Jukichi Uno) forces the older woman to guide him out of the swamp. She tricks him into plunging to his death in the pit where the women dispose of their victims. She climbs down and steals the samurai's possessions and, with great difficulty, his mask. Under the mask he is disfigured.

At night, the older woman dons the mask and frightens the young woman away from Hachi. During a storm, the older woman terrifies the young woman with the mask, but Hachi finds the daughter-in-law and again has sex with her in the grasses as the old woman watches from afar. Hachi returns to his hut. He finds a man in his hut. The man kills Hachi.

The older woman discovers that, after getting wet in the rain, the mask is impossible to remove. She reveals her scheming to the young woman and pleads with her to help take off the mask. The young woman agrees to remove the mask after the older woman promises not to interfere with her relationship with Hachi. The young woman breaks off the mask with a hammer. Under the mask, the older woman's face is covered with sores. The young woman thinks the older woman has turned into a demon, and runs from her; the older woman runs after her, crying out that she is a human being, not a demon. The young woman leaps over the pit, and as the older woman leaps after her the film ends.