Censor

I'll start by saying I am very glad I did not watch the trailer before viewing this film, and it is easy to see why some felt duped. To be clear, this is NOT a thriller. Do not go into this film expecting answers. Instead, it is an often-surreal (and in my opinion fascinating) look into a character's downward spiral. It is stylish, well-acted, and especially considering this is Prano Bailey-Bond's first feature it is surprising brave and bold with its narrative decisions. The film's greatest strength is its ambiguity, I also think this is where the film loses a lot of people.

I see a lot of reviews here complaining that this film has nothing to say, which is absolutely not true. However, it doesn't spoon feed you a concrete moral message such as "censorship = bad". It instead confronts these topics from multiple angles, both showing how ridiculous the conversation was around film during the video nasty era and also showing how a film can actually affect a vulnerable person's mind. I wouldn't go as far as to say it'll blow your mind with it's insightfulness, but it is at least trying to give the audience something worth thinking about, and I appreciate that.

Also, 84mins! Perfect length for a film like this, in fact some of my favourite films of the past couple of years have been below the 90min mark and I hope this trend continues.

The synopsis for 'Censor' sounds ridiculously good. It's such an intriguing idea for a movie. Sadly, as is usually the case, the reality isn't quite as entertaining as the concept. The movie started off well and actually had a really gripping and clever set-up period. But as the film went on it chose to go further and further down the strange and bizarre route and it just lost me.

This is a debut effort for filmmaker Prano Bailey-Bond. He shows some real promise. Even though I didn't love the direction the film chose to go in, the writing was still very sound. At least he picked a route and went with it convincingly. Usually the dialogue in these low-budget, debut films is noticeably bad, but here it was well above average I would to say. It was interesting and felt natural. There's certainly some talent behind the scenes here.

The film is short at only 84 minutes and it moves a long at a reasonable pace, so you are never caught checking your watch. There's enough to like here for people to enjoy, and it's possible some people will prefer the plot-path the film decided to go down more than I did. I will give this one a light recommendation. It might just pleasantly surprise you.

I liked how it started. The censorship theme is great and original. I didn't like how the story played out in the second half. All in all, not a great movie for me. Not a great horror or thriller or drama film. But still I enjoyed some parts of this movie.

"Censor" should on paper be a film that I would be instantly in to. Set in the "Video Nasties" time in the UK, it's about the story of a video censor and her descent into madness.

Similar stories have already been told in the likes of Berberian Sound Studio or Evil Ed - and while Censor has some brilliant moments of atmosphere and a haunting ending, the whole thing didn't really fully come together for me in the end.

I think maybe the psychological state of our protagonist was not established enough to fully believe her transition, so it all felt a bit too forced.

But there's still a lot to admire in Prano Bailey-Bond's debut feature, it just wasn't as engaging as I had hoped.

Censor isn't really a horror, nor is it a good slasher. They also tried to build up Giallo-like atmosphere, but I'm not sure what this has to do with anything, since it does not correspond well with the time period the film is set in.

The story is very short and basic, there's minimal acting and not that many details to make it interesting. There are no supporting characters, the main lead isn't particularly interesting as well. The ending is predictable and understandable (no ambiguity whatsoever).

It looks like they have used the setting only to oversaturate the film with hipster imagery, never going further with it.

Censor isn't a bad film, it just isn't interesting or engaging, they never try to show anything besides the visuals that serve no purpose other than eye candy for the hipsters (or how are these called today, IDK).