Censor – Film Review

Film censor Enid (Niamh Algar) takes pride in her meticulous work, guarding unsuspecting audiences against the deleterious effects of watching the gore-filled decapitations and eye gougings she pores over. Her sense of duty to protect is amplified by guilt over her inability to recall details of the long-ago disappearance of her sister, recently declared dead in absentia. When Enid is assigned to review a disturbing film from the archive that echoes her hazy childhood memories, she begins to unravel how this eerie work might be tied to her past.

Prano Bailey-Bond‘s Censor wastes little time in getting right down to the nitty-gritty which is definitely a relief seeing as how it runs at a mere eighty-four minutes. There are most definitely some sequences that I feel should’ve been expanded upon a lot further and certain characters don’t get developed nearly as much as you would hope, but nevertheless, Censor does offer a handful of great stuff despite the fact that it does feel extremely rushed sometimes.

Gratefully though, our main protagonist Enid is definitely well-developed and screenwriters Bailey-Bond and Anthony Fletcher really take their time to flesh out Enid and her motivations. She’s a sympathetic protagonist and one that we learn bits and pieces about throughout the story. And Niamh Algar delivers a totally committed performance where she holds absolutely nothing back and it’s all the better for it. This is an extremely bizarre and unconventional film so, because of that, you’d hope that the acting is kind of similar and it is which is great.

It is definitely a shame, though, to see the other characters in this story relatively brushed to the side for the most part. This movie kind of reminded me of this year’s Malignant but much tamer than that movie. Malignant got a ton of flack from some critics and tons of audience members because of just how insane and ridiculous it was. James Wan had dozens of ideas and he simply didn’t care. He basically just took them all and said “Screw it. I’m making it the way I want to make it”. And you know what? It was awesome.

Censor doesn’t commit as much as Wan’s film does but there are certain sequences in this film involving video nasties that are genuinely impressive and remarkably creepy to watch. These are undoubtedly the most entertaining scenes in the film and whenever they appear, you’re almost certain to be at the very least intrigued. But as I mentioned earlier, the film is over before you know it.

Now sometimes, that can be a good thing. “Time flies when you’re having fun” as they always say, right? While that’s true for a lot of movies, in the case of Censor, I couldn’t help but feel a tad bit disappointed by the time the credits rolled – mainly because I just wish the film was perhaps twenty minutes longer, that way there could’ve been a bigger kick to it. This film doesn’t do anything totally game-changing but it’s still an impressive feature that is incredibly unconventional in essentially every way. I’ve always been an advocate for unique horror and this movie mostly delivers the goods.