Censor

Year of release : 2021

Run time : 1h24m

Genre : Psychological Horror

The movie was directed and co-written by Prano Bailey-Bond.

The year is 1985, and Enid is a censor for the British Board of Film Classification during the UK low budget horror exploitation movies, distributed on video tape in the early ‘80’s, criticised by the press and the religious groups, called “video nasty”.

Enid is very adamant about the violent content to be cut and banned. The movie opens with her analyzing a movie, and deciding what should stay and what should go, based on its violence and how real it looks, because as she says, they can’t afford to make mistakes in this business.

Enid is the hardest worker on her board, always staying up late. She doesn’t have any friends, and when she gets home she solves crossword puzzles.

She is haunted by what happened to her sister, who disappeared when they were kids. When she sees a woman with her red hair on the street, she stops her to see her face, to see if it’s her.

Having dinner with her parents at a restaurant one evening, they tell her they finally accepted her sister is gone, and got her death certificate. Enid can’t let go of trying to find her. She doesn’t seem to remember what happened to her, although they were together when it happened. Which means it must have been something very traumatising.

Her mother tells her they’re not blaming her for her sister’s disappearance, but Enid blames herself enough.

After watching a violent movie against women, she talks to one of her co-workers about how these movies affect them.

Right after, she is called into her boss’ office, to talk to her about passing a movie called Deranged. A man k1lled his wife in the same way as in the movie, and somehow, Enid and one of her co-workers, who passed the movie, are considered to blame for it (I don’t understand how is it their fault, how about the writer and director for making such a movie?!)!

This messes with her mental state, who is obsessed with doing the right thing, with keeping the violent nasty things off the screen, to keep people safe, something which probably stems from her guilt from losing her sister when they played together in the forest.

To this adds up the fact she starts getting nasty calls from people, the press hunting her, as if she was the one who made the movie, and she starts having nightmares about the time her sister went missing.

One day she is approached by a producer at work, who offers her a role in the movie he is making.

Veteran horror director, Frederick North requested Enid personally to watch his movie “Don’t go in the church”. The movie has a deep impact on her, as it’s about what happened to her sister, but in a twisted way, and watching the movie she gets sick.

She starts looking for the director’s work, going to video rental stores, and finds a banned horror movie “under the table”. Watching it she sees a woman resembling her sister, thinking it’s her.

She looks for where the production company is located, and finds the producer, trying to find the actress. When she sees the producer, the man thinks she came to have s3x with him, and tries to force himself upon her, and when she fights him, he falls into one of his awards, and dies.

Enid finds the filming location of the actress’ latest movie, and she pretends to be one of the actors. At this point, after the trauma of seeing the producer dead, Enid finds it hard to distinguish what’s real from fiction, and when she talks to the director, he talks about the movie and acting, while she talks about her sister, thinking he is talking about her sister too, so they talk about 2 different things, not understanding each other.

I personally enjoyed the movie. Enid has dealt with personal trauma her whole life, and once she is put on the spot for not censoring enough of a movie, which is revealed after,that the cr1minal didn’t even watch, she slowly starts to lose her mind, as she wants to find her sister, or at least know what happened to her. So she needs a resolve, she needs closure.

Once she gets famous for not censoring a movie enough, the press is stalking her, and put her face in the papers on the front page, when she goes looking for banned horror movies, making it seem like she is a perv or junkie looking for p0rn or dr@gs!

The movie is shot in these small places, with tight corridors, feeling a bit claustrophobic. Even the forest, with its trees, doesn’t seem large, but contained. The colors go from brown to turquoise to red lights when expressing Enid’s mental state. I think everything it’s meant to suggest how “crowded” (in lack of a better word) it is in Enid’s mind. The red I think it’s meant to represent her obsession and repressed feelings. Like a personal hell, the heat of emotions and weight of thoughts. She has these repetitive stress disorder tics, like scratching her finger and pushing her shoulders back with her fingers, as a way to calm herself.

The acting was good.

I loved the soundtrack.

The visual effects were good.

Censor received positive reviews with a 69 critic score and 6.1 audience score on Metacritic, and 89% against 56% on Rotten Tomatoes. IMDB audiences graded it a 5.9.

You can watch the full movie for free, on platforms like Dailymotion and Ok.Ru.

Rating : Worth a watch !