Censor — A Review

24th August, 2021.

Any minute now … ?

I am going to get into bed.

I’ve noticed that the older I get?

The more an early night appeals.

But, before I do … ?

I wanted to make sure I do my usual thing on an evening like this.

Make sure I’d started on a movie night post: to remind myself I’ve seen a film … 

And that I wanted to tell you about it.

Tonight’s film?

The 2021 Prano Bailey-Bond directed, Censor.

Arguably, it could be better … but is very good for a first timer … 

~≈Á≈~

25th August, 2021.

Censor is set in the early 1980s: the age of the Video Nasty.

And opens with a shot of a girl wandering through the wood: falling over, before being dragged into the darkness.

It turns out the scene is one in a film that’s being reviewed by censors: the strict Enid (Niamh Algar) and the more relaxed Sanderson (Nicolas Burns).

The pair are, it seems, having an intense discussion about quite what should and should not stay in the film.

Enid’s not happy with the eyeball gouging: whilst Sanderson finds it acceptable.

Something they have to argue with the rest of the team.

After work … ?

Enid heads home: only to be reminded that she’s due to have dinner with her parents … who’ve finally managed to get the death certificate for her missing sister, Nina.

A sister who Enid swears is still alive.

~≈Á≈~

The next day … ?

The next day, at work, Enid and Sanderson are called before their boss, Fraser (Vincent Franklin.)

There’s a problem.

A film the pair had approved a few months earlier has been link to to a gruesome murder in the area.

And, what’s more?

They’ve been revealed as the censors who’d ordered it passed.

To make the day worse … ?

Enid has to review Don’t Go In the Church, along side co-worker, Perkins (Danny Lee Wynter).

The problem for Enid … ?

Is that the film … looks distinctly like a snuff film.

And just a little too reminiscent of the time her sister disappeared.

~≈Á≈~

Now … 

What did I make of Censor?

I have to admit, I felt it could — possibly — have had a little more money spent on the sets.

Oh, not the indoor ones: the outdoor ones, where the fictional films are filmed: it’s a re-used patch of woodland with a caravan in it.

A caravan that’s constantly re-dressed as needed: a scary cottage in one scene, a church in another, a caravan in a third.

But that’s about my only complaint about the film.

The writing — from Bailey-Bond and Alan Fletcher — is good: it, and the strong cast, take us from strong start to mid-point to a smoothly schizophrenic ending, with little apparent effort.

It’s also a film I found very reminiscent of Peter Strickland’s In Fabric: which I saw a few weeks ago.

A similar emotional tone, a similar use of colour palette, a very giallo feel to its subject.

And, while I don’t know if Censor’s on an artistic par with In Fabric?

Censor’s in very much the same genre territory: and, coming from a first time director?

It’s a very well made piece.

Censor.

★★★☆