Our fascination, as film fans, with the extraordinary era of the ‘video nasty’ continues unabated. Perhaps then, it’s fully understandable that films and filmmakers themselves display the same fascination; the lure of the heady mix of frenetic output, myth-building, mass appeal, liberal ignition and the puritanical pushback of the 80s is irresistible. That goes for people who remember the era personally, or simply feel that they do thanks to its role in cinema history. Now, a particular subset of films looks at the era in a more specific way; they explore the fantastical possibility that the puritans could have been right to be concerned. What if there was something else going on? What if, on some level, there was real harm? It’s the same thinking which has informed persistent rumours of snuff movies and cursed films; such was the sea-change back then.
Censor (2021) explores those boundaries between reality, fiction and video nasty, and as such it belongs to an existing subgenre of contemporary horror films; the key difference is in how it does what it does. For starters, Censor takes the bold decision to humanise a film censor (working for the BBFC in all but name). These characters have long been, and often fairly so, folk devils to horror fans – but Enid (Niamh Algar) is immediately represented as someone who just wants to do their job well, whatever you might think of that job. She is a woman living through interesting times, with the dawn of home video, moral panics and backlash; rather than feeling drunk on power, Enid feels that she is, somehow, ‘keeping people safe’. How does a diligent young woman take such meticulous notes about the kinds and durations of on-screen murder scenes she sees, whilst remaining so completely detached from them? It’s soon apparent that it’s all something of a proxy; her personal life is strained, particularly her relationship with her parents. Her younger sister Nina went missing when they were both children; Enid’s parents are desperate to move on, but Enid cannot.
Enid’s emotional distance from the day job is soon afterwards tested: a real-life crime has apparently emulated a video nasty, one which she and a colleague recently passed for release. Significant cuts or not, this is her direct responsibility, or so it seems. The UK press are, of course, on it immediately; this ‘Amnesiac Killer’ is blamed on Enid personally, and the thought that she’s at fault precipitates a crisis point which feeds into her next gig, viewing an unusually eerie nasty by cult director, Frederick North. The film calls troubling memories to mind – but is that all? Enid begins to doubt; something about this mysterious filmmaker and his roster seems familiar somehow.
Censor has some serious heft behind it in the triumvirate of BFI, Film 4 and Ffilm Cymru Wales: speaking of BFI in particular, they have recent form with similarly bizarre, if aesthetically-gorgeous horrors and fantasies, with In Fabric (2018) and Undergods (2020) coming to mind. Censor has a lot of the same juxtaposition of rich visuals and stark scenes as both of those films, and it looks wonderful throughout. (There’s something of Saint Maud in Censor as well.) Thankfully, its representation of the 1980s goes beyond the standard overreliance on big tellies and big glasses (though both are present in Censor; the prerequisite indie cinema nod to analogue at least makes perfect sense here). Its subtleties are incredibly well-observed, and recognisable. Little things…the quality of outdoor electric light, for instance, something I just about remember from the before-times when subways etc. were still lit by analogue bulbs; the world was just lit differently. It looked different. Then there’s the barely-there use of contemporary news broadcasts and the nods to some of the debates and discourse which were bubbling along beneath the surface of polite society, though these never obliterate the creeping sense of the horror to come. It certainly looks the part. It calls to other elements from the before-times, too; remember having to store information about films in our memories, rather than relying on IMDb to do the job for us? By no means is Censor a simple nostalgia piece, but its other strengths wouldn’t work if its basic premise was tawdry or simply unbelievable.
Its dialogue works seamlessly too – at least, for the first couple of acts, seeing as the script recedes as more surreal elements creep into the fore. It all feels very British somehow, the way the profound jostles with the deeply mundane; for example, a censor goes from showing off his knowledge about art and culture to the worldly concerns of trimming a torture scene; Enid’s parents go straight from a chat about Nina’s death certificate to meal recommendations. It’s economical, and often very funny too. Another key element is in how it uses the ‘film within a film’ idea, as this is integral to Censor from the very start as the censors do their thing, and increasingly so as Enid grows fascinated with the work of Frederick North. Reality and fantasy begin to blend, albeit in a low key way; the films shown are no simple ‘invented trailer reel’ style affair. Gradually, Enid’s real life begins to be lit and framed like a genre film, such as when the camera captures her walking down corridors and subways, or anxiously answering the phone: with one or two shaky set pieces aside as the film moves towards its conclusion, fantasy and reality become fully one and the same and this all leads to a very effective end sequence. There’s a lot to unpack here, and it’s a film which would definitely reward a second viewing.
Censor is undeniably a horror film, but one which is able to sustain a wealth of elements throughout. It’s well-realised, thoughtful and provocative, with a subtle emotional intelligence that is both stylish and nightmarish.
Magnet Releasing will release CENSOR in US theatres on June 11th, 2021. On Demand: June 18th, 2021.