Censor (2021) Edit this disc-set into your reality (Review)

Prano Bailey-Bond’s Censor was one of the most impressive films released in 2021. Shot on a tiny budget by a first-time director, Bailey-Bond offers a compelling story of grief, trauma and an unravelling psyche, set against a meticulously created vision of the 1980s. Censor offers nods to horror cinema and engages with a key period in the history of horror and of censorship. 

In keeping with this stacked film, Second Sight Films have released a stacked limited edition Blu-Ray. This two-disc box set is accompanied by original artwork by James Neal and a soft cover book featuring new essays and art cards. The two discs include multiple interviews and Q&As, three documentaries, deleted scenes and a video essay, as well as three audio commentaries. If there is a more comprehensive Blu-Ray release out there, please ensure that you direct avid viewers to it. 

Censor is enveloping and chilling, offering visceral jump scares within a disturbing atmosphere. It evokes a sense of 1980s Britain during the Video Nasties scare, a notorious period of British censorship history during which many films were cut or banned by the British Board of Film Censorship (BBFC, later renamed the British Board of Film Classification). The production design, editing and cinematography brilliantly evoke this period, and also express the protagonist’s journey through grief, regrets and tragedy, that linger with the viewer long after the credits have rolled.

Enid Baines (Niamh Algar) is the titular censor. Enid takes her work very seriously, as she tells her parents, “It’s not entertainment, I do it to protect people”. Enid’s commitment to protection is complicated by the childhood disappearance of her sister Nina, someone that Enid failed to protect and has seemingly never forgiven herself for. When a new film resonates with Enid’s trauma, she embarks on an increasingly disturbing investigation into suspicion and paranoia, as the line between fiction and reality steadily blurs. 

In the central role, Niamh Algar is never less than mesmerising. Present in every scene, her neat, button-down, self-regulated persona is apparent both through her clipped tones and her physical appearance. A self-conscious technique of rolling her shoulders allows her to reset, while her ornate gold-rimmed spectacles provide an additional frame amongst the frames of projection and television screens, all within the frame of the film itself. As the narrative progresses, Enid’s appearance subtly changes, Algar blinking rapidly, nervously picking at her fingernails and even, in the later stages, cracking a quite terrifying smile. The viewer’s also becomes distorted along with that of the protagonist as the editing glitches, the image shifts from high quality film to grainy video footage, dolly shots move through the white noise of the TV screen into the horror film scenario, and the aspect ratio narrows as film spills into reality, or reality collapses into film.

Despite the breaking of reality, there is nonetheless a strong sense of realism throughout the film. Censor performs a de-sentimentalised and critically nostalgic look at the 1980s, incorporating social and political tensions such as the fear of video shop owners being raided by the police. Fear of the state also appears with footage of then prime minister Margaret Thatcher calling for unity (i.e., obedience) amidst violent police crackdowns. Released in a contemporary time of similar socio-political unrest, Censor comments on current events in terms of scapegoating rather than addressing actual problems. Alongside this critical aspect, Censor is also a deeply emotional film. Much of the best horror is about melancholia and regret, and while gory violence can provide a measure of catharsis, neither Enid nor the viewer are left with any with resolution. Indeed, the lack of resolution, plus the tragedy, combine to give Censor a deeply chilling finale, with little faith in reality or the ideology that supports it. 

The documentary The Making of Censor features various talking heads, including Prano Bailey-Bond, producer Helen Jones, Niamh Algar as well as other actors including Clare Perkins and Nicholas Burns. Surprises include that much of Censor was shot on 35mm, a creative choice that the filmmakers insisted on from the beginning. If you ever wondered about the dramatic potential for beige colour schemes, costume designer Saffron Cullane as well as production designer Paulina Rzeszowska give a fascinating emphasis on the importance of colour in expressing character. The lighting approach of the film’s director of photography is further detailed in ‘Nasty Images: a new interview with Annika Summerson’. Drawing these various ideas together, Bailey-Bond mentions a surprising inspiration in her visual and sound decisions to present the warren that Enid moves through. Anecdotes about horror actor veteran Michael Smiley being very funny indicate that there was much humour on set alongside the grim subject matter and difficult shooting conditions, such as filming at night, in the forest, in the cold and the mud. It is always entertaining to see people laughing at the difficulties they encountered, when we imagine they may not have been laughing at the time. 

A particular point of interest is that Censor obtained funding more easily than might have been the case thanks to Bailey-Bond’s background in short films. Most significant among these is Nasty, a short included here. Nasty offers the same aesthetic as Censor and the same device of shifting the aspect ratio. When young Doug (Albie Marber) finds a video tape after his father goes missing, reality and fiction start to blur together. Bailey-Bond presents the film almost entirely from the child’s perspective, creating an illicitness as Doug finds The Driller Killer, Cursed To Hell and other video nasties. There are some overt references, such as a prowling camera that echoes The Evil Dead – a film Bailey-Bond cites as a childhood favourite – a character is pulled into a bed as in A Nightmare on Elm Street, and perhaps more surprisingly, Doug’s attire is reminiscent of that worn by Henry Thomas as Elliott in ET: The Extra-Terrestrial. Childhood innocence, however, is not on the menu here, and with much of the same crew being involved, Nasty serves as a fascinating precursor to Censor. 

Further extras include a screening Q&A with Bailey-Bond and composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch hosted by actor Jed Sheppard, recorded after a screening at the Curzon Soho. Bailey-Bond describes her background and how she got into horror, while Levienaise-Farrouch explains basing the film score around Enid’s mind while subtly incorporating musical references to Goblin and John Carpenter. Across this and indeed all the content, Bailey-Bond is a lively and engaging presence. Her (Zoom) conversation with BBFC Compliance Officer David Hyman provides background on the research performed by Bailey-Bond and co-writer Anthony Fletcher. Hyman’s insight was clearly invaluable in terms of capturing the social and political aspects of the period, as well as the specific role played by the BBFC in video regulation amidst competing demands from the government of the time and a growing horror community. Bailey-Bond indicates her interest in the pressure placed upon censors, which Hyman helps to explain both in terms of the sheer volume of work involved as well as the public and political expectations. There is mention of Alfred Hitchcock as well as the ‘out of body experience’ involved in watching yourself watching the film. The conversation is pleasingly lengthy, allowing for in-depth discussion, including an amusing section over the BBFC rating of Censor itself, which was, perhaps ironically, perfectly straightforward. 

Bailey-Bond continues her lively engagement in one of three commentary tracks for the film. The first features Bailey-Bond along with executive producer and all-round horror and film aficionado Kim Newman. The second commentary pairs the writer-director with director of photography Annika Summerson, editor Mark Towns and sound designer Tim Harrison, while the third brings in the views of academics and novelists Kat Ellinger, Lindsay Hallam and Miranda Corcoran. All offer insightful perspectives on the production and the wider meanings of the film, along with amusing aspects such as Bailey-Bond thanking her cat and Newman’s anecdote about Joe Dante recommending that all family pictures should be shot as part of pre-production, and both agreeing on the cathartic effect of horror. 

A true gem among the extras is Enid’s Gaze, a video essay by film critic and academic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. Heller-Nicholas performs close textual analysis of the film’s style and narrative, identifying key points in the visual design such as the significance of particular flowers and the thematic resonance of Censor with the tagline of the infamous video nasty The Last House on the Left: ‘To avoid fainting, keep repeating, it’s only a movie…’ Heller-Nicholas concludes her analysis with a detailed examination on Enid’s glasses, referring to scholar Mary Anne Doane and arguing that these glasses are an overt demonstration of looking and becoming subject of the gaze, and that Censor represents a radical shift of the woman’s place within the visual landscape. 

The other extras on the disc set look at the wider issue of the Video Nasty era. A two-part documentary by David Gregory, Ban the Sadist Videos!, interviews label owners and shop owners, filmmakers, critics and academics, members of Parliament, regulators and former police officers. These voices from the 1980s highlight the challenge of legislation that lags behind technology and cultural taste, and the significance of major figures including Mary Whitehouse and Margaret Thatcher. This documentary, as well as the accompanying short film My Nasty Memories in which Gregory recounts his own experiences of the time, gives an excellent sense of the competing forces within the Video Nasty struggle. Though framed as a moral panic, the various talking heads indicate that censorship is 99% political. The clear narrative of the documentary also indicates the economic and financial results of the Video Nasties. This is perhaps illuminating for those who might think the BBFC is governed by commercial pressure: the BBFC applies pressure, rather than submitting to it. Part Two of the documentary concentrates especially on the BBFC, juxtaposing former director-general James Ferman against contrasting views. While there is some repetition, there is also a strong sense of the working practice for examiners. Different experts describe Video Nasties as a very British topic, and this wonderfully British documentary does a fine job of exploring this topic. Furthermore, Gregory’s scope goes beyond the list of banned videos to consider real world tragedies blamed on films, such as the Hungerford massacre and its parallels to Rambo: First Blood Part Two as well as the case of James Boulger where the judge mentioned Child’s Play in his summation. After the turbulent events of the 1980s and 90s, the documentary continues its balanced narrative to discuss the BBFC in the 21^st century, with much clearer guidelines, strong controls for pornography and its continued strong stance on eroticised sexual violence. While public values shift, it is notable what remains in place, and Ban the Sadist Videos! delivers a persuasive insight into Video Nasties as illustrative of very British structures and hierarchies. 

If you like Censor, you should own it. If you’re interested in how films are made, you should own this disc-set. If you’re interested in censorship and how decisions are made, you will find some answers here. If you want an insight into a still controversial cultural debate, this disc-set will give you a range of responses, both from the time, and from a contemporary satirical perspective. In short, edit this disc-set into your reality right now. 

VINCENT’S ARCHIVE – CENSOR (2021)