AFS’s Roots of J-Horror series continues with Kaneto Shindō’s unnerving black-and-white masterpiece about human cruelty and divine retribution in the form of a demonic mask. Nobuko Otowa and Jitsuko Yoshimura play a mother and daughter-in-law who make a living from selling what they strip from the bodies of dead soldiers – some of whom they have slain themselves. But the wrath of the Buddha comes in the form of that hideous mask and the cleansing rain that gives no succor to the truly wicked. – Richard Whittaker
