Enid (Niamh Algar) works for the British Board of Censors and spends her days watching horror movies and cutting out all the material she deems offensive. When she sees a new movie called Don’t Go in the Church, it reawakens a repressed memory of her sister’s disappearance. She then sets out to find the mysterious director responsible for the film looking for answers. Predictably, it leads her down a path of long buried secrets, and eventually, murder.
Censor is set in England in the ‘80s at the height of the “Video Nasties” scare. I’ve watched a few documentaries about the Video Nasties, but I think this is the first narrative film I’ve seen about them. While the central mystery Enid is trying to unravel isn’t exactly involving, the way director/co-writer Prano Bailey-Bond evokes the niche era in time that the film depicts is extremely well done.
Despite the movie’s dedication to recreating the time period and a setting that is ripe with horror and old school VHS history, I found it strange that it doesn’t quite work as a horror flick itself. Maybe if it leaned heavier into the Video Nasty aesthetic and delivered on the gore, it would’ve eked by. Other than a gruesome accidental death and a decapitation, the gore is kinda weak. (It often feels like it’s trying to be one of those “elevated” horror flicks.) One thing is for sure: If this was released in the ‘80s, it wouldn’t have had any trouble with the censors.
At least the movie is bolstered by a strong performance by Algar as Enid. Even when the plot is spinning its wheels, you feel compelled to watch just on the strength of her performance alone. It would be interesting to see what she could do with a script worthy of her talents.
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