I have mentioned this movie before in my "best of" end of year lists, but I don't think I've actually reviewed it. Censor is a fascinating slow-burn psychological horror film set during the early eighties in England, focusing on the Video Nasties scare at the time, in which the British government was determined to censor or outright ban the wave of local and international films focused on gore, violence and other disturbing content.
Niamh Algar plays Enid Banes, a woman who works as one of the censors, reviewing films, noting unacceptable content, and then reporting what must be cut from a film for acceptable release, or outright banning content. Enid has a problem, though: it is quickly evident by her obsessive compulsive behaviors and unusually flat affect that something is not quite right with her. She meets with her parents, who have secured a death certificate for her younger sister, who it turns out disappeared years ago in 1965 under mysterious circumstances, though Enid herself was present when her sister vanished, though she has no memory of what really happened. Instead, Enid watches the movies she is supposed to critique and advise on, and occasionally a film presents something that seems to jog her memories....including one film depicting two sisters in the woods when one is gruesomely murdered....by the other sister! Something about the scene is just a bit too familiar to Enid, and she becomes obsessed with finding the producer of the film, a lecherous sort she had briefly met.
Amidst all this, a story blows up about an amnesiac killer, a man who slew his family, and a journalist who links the names of two specific censors (of which Enid is one) to the release of a film with content that seems to mirror the actual killing. As the press begins to hound her, Enid grows more obsessed with the films that seem to be leading her down a trail to the discovery of where her sister really went, as she is convinced she was abducted and is alive somewhere, being forced to make horror movies.
I dare not say any more about this film without a proper spoiler warning, so instead I suggest that you should go watch it (and not watch any media about it, if you haven't already been spoiled on its content) instead. It is a slow burn horror for at least the first half of the film, then ramps up rapidly. I love this style of film with its slow, methodical pacing and clever use of cinematography for effect. Niamh Algar is excellent as the protagonist of the film as well, and she is the sole focus of the camera for the run of the film. Solid A for me!
SPOILER SECTION
Okay, you have been warned! Enid is, to begin with, the focus of the camera for the entirety of the film. We are effectively watching what she does from her own context and understanding of things. Every now and then something happens and maybe a contradictory flash of something else not quite right appears, suggesting that not all is as it seems. Enid is a classic unreliable narrator, and while her "narration" is via the camera itself, what we are seeing is entirely affected by her own unusual state of mind. Over the course of the film the dimensions of the screen shift from the usual widescreen format to a more conventional 4:3 format, typical of the grainy old televisions these VHS tapes would once have been watched on. The more frayed Enid's sense of reality, the quicker the screen locks down to a 4:3 format. This is one of a handful of films I have seen which manage to cleverly use this format to good effect (The Lighthouse is another).
Enid's clearly not well. She has obsessive compulsive behaviors, her flat affect suggests strange emotional detachment, and midway through the film she abruptly (sort of by accident) murders a film producer in a truly grisly manner and instead of being horrified at what she did, she quickly behaves as if nothing unusual happened. In short order she makes her way to a film shoot where she believes an actress is about to be killed, an actress she is convinced is her long lost sister. When she gets there, her ability to tell reality from fiction is effectively gone; the earlier background story of the man who murdered his family after being influenced by a video nasty is no longer the problem; Enid herself is the one who has become influenced by the video nasties, and she is unable to tell her hallucinations from reality. The film ends on a grim note as she returns to her parents, with what she thinks is her sister found at last, though jagged moments of reality interrupt to see horrified parents and a terrified actress.
The film does not address a couple items I sort of wish it had, though I can understand why it might not have: Enid's long lost sister possibly was killed by Enid, if you conclude from her viewing of "Don't go in the Church" that the depiction of two sisters, one being murdered by an axe, is triggering her memory of that day because that is actually what happened. That raises questions, though: such as where did her sister's body go? Did her parents help cover it up? Or was her sister really done away with or abducted, as Enid seems to believe, despite the fact that later events suggest her powerful ability to disassociate from reality and see what she wants means literally anything could have happened to her sister. Perhaps that is the point. Sometimes it is just fine for a movie to leave deliberate loose ends.
Anyway, if you like slow, methodical horror that builds tension and dread with slow precision rather than jump scare, I definitely advise you check Censor out! It remains one of my favorites. I got my copy from Vinegar Syndrome, indeed it was my first purchase from them.
