Demons · reception & legacy
1971 · Toshio Matsumoto
How Demons has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
An independent, avant-garde samurai film that screened at Cannes' Directors' Fortnight and Rotterdam in 1972 and then all but vanished from circulation for decades; the post-2017 rediscovery of Matsumoto (via the Funeral Parade of Roses restoration) turned it into one of Letterboxd's favourite deep cuts.
What's debated
The recurring fan take: that this — not Funeral Parade of Roses — is Matsumoto's true masterpiece, and that it's criminally underseen next to its famous sibling.
Its footprint
Its calling card is a reputation as maybe the bleakest samurai film ever made — critic Noël Burch called it 'one of the most important and beautiful films made in Japan since Kurosawa's prime,' a quote that follows the film everywhere.
Where it stands
A cult object of the Japanese New Wave — the 'you haven't really dug deep until you've seen this' pick among jidaigeki lovers.