Censor (2021)

Originally reviewed on October 12, 2021

Censor is a film that I have been interested in since I heard people say good things about it. The film follows Enid who is a film censor who lost her sister years ago and after her parents declare her legally dead, she starts to get a bit unstable and believes that an actress in a film she is watching is her long lost sister. The title sequence did a great job of establishing the world that Enid is in. There are plenty of shots of movies that got caught up in the video nasties histeria of the 1970’s and 1980’s. I did spend a small portion of the film wondering what the actual censors were thinking whilst watching this film giving it the 15 certificate it got.

After the initial introduction the plot starts the ball rolling with Enid’s downward spiral when her parents pull out a death certificate whilst they are out for a meal which I thought was a bit tactless but it takes a while for Enid to start to show that anything is wrong. There is one moment where she is watching a film and she starts getting flashbacks and she gets emotional and its well done because its not over the top or cliched. I thought it was well handled.

This film centers around Enid and the thing about Niamh Algar’s performance is that its very understated for most of the film but when the story goes to the woods she becomes a different person and I thought for the entire film it was a great performance and keeps you interested. Michael Smiley’s performance is worthy of mention cause he plays a producer who makes tasteless films and so when he suffers a horrible death, its hard to feel sorry for him. 

The final act of the film is slightly confusing and I did start to lose track of what was going on. The final few moments where we see Enid take her sister back to their parents and the parents appear delighted but the picture cuts out to show the reality shows how far Enid has gone. I enjoyed this film a lot. The films looks amazing and the central performance from Niamh Algar helps me through the portions of the film that lost me. Prano Bailey-Bond directs this film very well and should be credited for keeping things tense and atmospheric from the very beginning to the very end.