"Censor" - Film Review
Censor is writer/director Prano Bailey-Bond’s feature debut and what a stunning, self-assured feature it is.
The film takes place during the ’80s during the heyday of the brutal, gory video nasties that have become a scapegoat for the downfall of society. It’s Enid’s (Niamh Algar) job as a censor to go through and remove the truly heinous scenes. She spends her days watching films filled with decapitations and debating whether or not the eye gouging has to be removed in order for the film to be suitable for audience viewing.
Part of the reason Enid takes her job as censor so seriously is because of her sister’s mysterious disappearance when they were children. She remembers nothing about the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping, despite the fact that she was there. So many years have passed that her sister has been declared dead in absentia. Enid couldn’t protect her sister then, but she believes she can protect people now through her job as a censor.
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Of course it’s never that simple in a horror movie is it? A man goes on a murdering spree and cites one of the films Enid edited as the inspiration for his crimes. As a punishment of sorts, Enid is relegated to going through older films at work. In these forgotten films, questions and answers about Enid’s sister come to light.
The final moments of the film are particularly striking. It’s the culmination of the video nasties that Enid has been watching, her editing expertise, and the closure she craves about what happened to her sister. It’s impossible to explain without ruining the impact of those final moments, but this ending is proof that Bailey-Bond is an exciting new voice in the horror genre. So often, writers/directors of horror movies have grand ideas of unsettling visuals and interestingly creepy plots, but they cannot stick the ending. Bailey-Bond doesn’t have that issue. Even seasoned veterans of the genre could learn something from Censor’s fraught final moments.
In this era of filmmaking where movies are longer than they need to be, it’s always exciting to see a perfectly-plotted film that almost hits the 90-minute mark. Bailey-Bond didn’t linger on the unnecessary or leave loose ends for audiences to scratch their heads over. Censor is intricate and thought-provoking without being convoluted. The film is both an ode to the video nasties and a look at why they had such command over the public. Perhaps taking a page out of Enid’s book as an editor, Censor is perfectly cut to maintain the tension right up to the final moments.
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