CENSOR review: A dark meta-horror debut set during the infamous Video Nasties era

While the satanic panic was raging throughout the U.S. in the ’80s, over in the U.K. the government and religious groups set their sights on the gory horror films that came to be known as the “Video Nasties.” Videos that fell under this category could be confiscated directly from video stores, which led to a clandestine brown paper bag system that enabled customers to directly rent unrated horror films like Eaten Alive! and Inseminoid. Censor, the feature film debut from Welsh director Prano Bailey-Bond, is a dark meta-horror film set in the Video Nasties era that pays homage to those infamous releases while charting its own disturbing path.

Enid (Niamh Algar) is a film censor in the U.K. in the ’80s, who spends her time in claustrophobic screening rooms watching some of the most brutal and horrific films ever committed to video. She takes her job very seriously and believes she is saving the general public from witnessing the depraved acts of rape and murder she has to sit through on a daily basis. Many of her cuts are minor — a trim of a shot of genitals here and there, while a scribble in her notepad reads “eye-gouging must go!”

Still mourning the loss of her sister who disappeared when they were both children, Enid’s world takes a surrealistic turn when she suddenly becomes a despised public figure after an alleged murderer is said to have taken inspiration from a recent horror film she allowed to pass through the censoring system. Bombarded by obscene phone calls and harassed by throngs of press outside her office, Enid begins to spiral out of control when she becomes convinced her long-lost sister is one of the actors in a low-budget horror film.

Against the wishes of her parents who have long since given up hope of ever finding their daughter alive, Enid begins a clandestine search into the horror film underground in search of her sister. It’s a dangerous journey filled with a sleazy producer (Michael Smiley), under-the-table illegal video rentals, and a secretive filmmaker she is convinced is sending her messages through his violent low-budget films.

Shot on 35mm, Super-8 film, and VHS, Censor transitions between film stock and aspect ratios to create a hypnotic and unnerving viewing experience. Without ever coming across like a tacky ’80s throwback (there isn’t a single piece of spandex in the film), Prano Bailey-Bond (who co-write the film with Anthony Fletcher) instead captures the gritty feeling of discovering some of the stranger horror titles from the bottom of the rack, back in the days before IMDB and YouTube trailers revealed everything about a movie at a single touch.

That sense of dark exploration bleeds through Censor as Enid searches for her sister in a world she has done everything in her power to de-fang (with limited success). With plenty of movie-within-a-movie footage, Prano Bailey-Bond gets to stretch out and recreate the gaudy look of those direct-to-VHS oddities as Enid’s search becomes increasingly more frantic.

Niamh Algar delivers a powerhouse central performance as Enid, who undergoes an incredible and upsetting deterioration over the film’s compact 84-minute run time. While the film’s bold stylistic choices often take center stage, Censor isn’t lacking in gore or scares — the film has some of the purest moments of terror I’ve witnessed in a horror film this year.

Designed as a tribute to the time when the everyday act of renting horror films could land you in jail, Prano Bailey-Bond has crafted one of the most surprising and enthralling horror debuts in memory. Censor feels like discovering a hidden video store gem from an era when simply treading into the horror section truly felt like a dangerous act.

Censor is in select theatres and on video-on-demand now.