Saturday, June 19, 2021

New Movie Review: Censor

2021 is shaping up to be a great year for horror.  We've had style-over-substance movies that are so fun you don't care about their shortcomings, deep films that get stuck in your head long after the credits roll, and everything in between.  My top ten list is already really solid just six months into the year, and after watching Censor, I'm happy to say that the parade of awesome movies doesn't look like it's going to slow down any time soon.

Censor is a British psychological horror movie that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this past January, and it just recently became available to a wider audience.  It opened in very limited theaters on June 11, and it hit VOD on June 18.

The story is set during the video nasty era in England, and if you don't know what that is, let me give you a brief overview.  In the early 1980s, the BBFC, the organization that gives movies their ratings in England just like the MPA (formerly the MPAA) does in America, only rated movies that came out in theaters.  Direct-to-video films were able to bypass the system, so controversy erupted when a bunch of really violent and sexually explicit movies began to hit home video.  Eventually, they passed a law requiring these movies to be rated as well, and the BBFC employed censors to watch them and decide whether they could hit the market as is or if they needed to be cut or even just banned outright.

Censor follows one of these BBFC censors, a woman named Enid, who really believes in her work.  She genuinely thinks she's providing an important service for society, and the film hammers this home by depicting her as a very conservative person overall.  Everything from the way she carries herself to the way she dresses gives off that vibe, so it's no surprise that she would be in favor of censoring horror movies.

During the course of her work, Enid comes across a movie that she thinks could provide the key to the disappearance of her sister when they were young, and she eventually goes down a bit of a rabbit hole exploring video nasties and the people who make them.  Her already-fragile mental state begins to deteriorate, and her descent into madness climaxes in arguably the best ending I've seen all year.

Like I said before, this is a psychological horror movie, and whenever I hear a film described that way, I never quite know what to expect.  Is it going to be a genuine horror film, or will it just be a psychological thriller?  I went into this one with that same uncertainty, and after watching it, I can tell you without a doubt that this is in fact a horror movie.

That being said, Censor isn't going to be for everyone.  While it's a legit horror film, it's very, very slow.  Much like Saint Maud, this one takes its sweet time getting to the scary stuff, so you need to be patient with it.  I wasn't expecting a scare every few minutes, but even I was surprised at how slow it was.  For most of its runtime, the movie plays more like a psychological thriller, but then in the final few scenes, the horror comes to the surface in a big way.  It's one of the most shocking and effective horror endings I've seen in a while, so even though it takes a bit to get there, it's totally worth the wait.

But I don't want you to get the wrong idea.  The first part of the film isn't just filler that you have the slog through to get to the good stuff.  No, the whole thing is really good, and it's largely because actress Niamh Algar does a great job as Enid. She carries you through the slower parts and then gets the job done equally well when the pace begins to pick up, so you never get bored watching her.  What's more, Enid's slow descent into madness is pretty interesting as well. It thrills you and keeps your eyes glued to the screen as you wonder where this journey will end up, so even though most of the movie doesn't feel like full-on horror, it's horrific enough to hold you over until the blood-soaked finale.

On top of all that, I really enjoyed the message of this film too.  I can't say to much about this without spoiling the ending, so I'll just say that Censor asks some great questions about what effects horror movies have on viewers and whether horror filmmakers or the people who want to censor their work are the real dangers to society.  It also touches a bit on why we watch horror films, and if you're a genre fan, I think you're going to like what this movie has to say.

All in all, I was a big fan of Censor, and to be honest, I don't have many criticisms of it.  There are a handful of things I could nitpick, but the movie is so well-made that I didn't really care about them.  This is an interesting story that's well-acted and well-directed, and the horrific ending is an absolute cherry on top.  Like I said before, the slow pace isn't going to be for everyone, but if this sounds like your kind of film, you're not going to want to miss it.