It’s the coke-fueled era of the 1980s, ‘Scarface’ is in theatres bursting with gratuitous violence, everybody’s tuning in for the Live Aid concert where Freddy Mercury will give possibly his greatest performance and the government is cracking down on the rotten and filthy video nasties that plague VHS stores with the express intent to make you squirm. You’re driving down Main Street now when you see a store on your left, the open sign buzzing and tempting you with its neon glow.
‘Censor’ (2021) is definitely a rare gem. Until yesterday I hadn’t heard of it, but when it showed up as I was browsing Stan, I decided to give it a try. What I found was a glorious homage to grindhouse cinema that would make Rodriguez and Tarantino weep. Any fan of the ‘V.H.S.’ films will definitely find something to love here! Director Prano Bailey-Bond and leading lady Niamh Algar take horror to the genre’s most suitable and exciting targets: film censors!
Enid spends her working days cutting and trimming the worst of the worst. ‘Cannibal Carnage’, ‘Extreme Coda’ and ‘Deranged’, the latest film to be scapegoated as the influencer of adolescent hooligans and disturbed murderers. When Enid sits down to watch the latest bloodbath, ‘Don’t Go In The Church’, she watches a scene that is eerily too close to the incident that lost her little sister, whom everyone else is convinced to be dead. Enid finds this too identical to be mere coincidence, and as she begins her almost insomniac odyssey to find the truth, her mind, much like her sister, is lost.
Algar does a fantastic job, always looking sleep-deprived and weak on her journey. The last half-hour of the film becomes a testament to her acting ability, portraying a woman we can see is innocent, but has a deep darkness inside her. Micheal Smiley portrays Doug Smiley, a video nasty producer who takes a liking to Enid, aiming to place her front and center in one of his films. Smiley does a great job making the character an uneasy, perverted predator who might even have a few risque flicks in his filmography. Another nicely done performance, though brief (like most of the cast), was Adrian Schiller playing Frederick North, the director and orchestrator of Enid’s paranoia. Schiller depicts the typical stereotype of the embellished, self-loving, pompous artist, but breaks away from the routine by using his only scene to yell and scream at Enid, demanding full cooperation in his film.
The visuals are in the usual VHS style, a little grain and more focus on saturation, smoothly capturing the style of the 1980s, like a Wes Anderson horror film.
Mason’s Rating: See It Tonight! 4 out of 5 stars!
‘Censor’ boasts a classic Final Girl tale for everyone to cheer, and a deep descent into madness which will keep you curious the entire 84-minute runtime, with a twist ending you may see coming (but hoped it wouldn’t), this is definitely a massacre to look out for!
Photo credit: IMDb