Images can have a long-linger effect on their viewers, with art often imitating life and sometimes vice versa. This was a part of the fear that overtook the UK in the 1980s with video nasties, or low-budget horror and exploitation films that required some guidance from censors to warn audiences about what awaited them if they came across these videotapes. This is the inspiration behind Censor, the debut feature from director Prano Bailey-Bond.
Enid (Niamh Algar) is one of the censors that we meet and one that takes her job very seriously. Based upon the way that she interacts with her co-workers, maybe too seriously. She puts her work before all else, often isolating herself from the rest of the office. She seems even more detached when her parents inform her over dinner that her long-missing sister has officially been declared dead in absentia.
Soon it seems her work and life become intertwined and her reality starts to come undone in what results in a psych-inducing horror film that packs more style over substance.
It’s clear that Bailey-Bond takes a lot of love and adoration of the films of this era and gives it the sort of recreation that is full of some highly atmospheric and stylized moments. While the neon-tinted cinematography and rich, textured score are particular highlights, these stylized moments don’t pick up the slack left by a story that doesn’t maintain any momentum or narrative heft.
Enid’s character has the cold and detached nature that is intended, and Algar is quite good in the role. But the film’s isolating nature kept me from any emotional investment and the self-serious tone only compounded that issue. It was not until the end of the film where her reality starts bleeding into the world of these wild video nasties that it starts to showcase some fun horror chops but by then, it’s too late.
While the history behind the censors and the video nasty era provide for some interesting insight into that particular era of UK film history, Censor ends up being a decent enough midnight festival movie but not much more than that.
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