phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2021

Censor



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2021
Runtime: 1h 24min
Country: UK
Language: English
Genre Tags: Horror, Mystery
Plot Summary: After viewing a strangely familiar video nasty, Enid, a film censor, sets out to solve the past mystery of her sister's disappearance, embarking on a quest that dissolves the line between fiction and reality.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: Memory:film::letting go of the past:censoring. Quiet and contemplative until it isn't, the way blowing up a balloon is enjoyable until it's not. Maybe a bit too slow, maybe a bit more surface than depth, but it has tone and style days, so a bonus star. Would watch the director's follow-up.


Outside Reviews:

Simon Abrams
2.5 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

Censor inevitably becomes a trite, but moody exploration of Enid's repressed feeling, mostly about Nina, but also her job. Enid looks everywhere for clues, first at a local video store - operated by an understandably leery clerk - and then with North's proudly unsavory producer Doug Smart (Michael Smiley). The answers that she and her creators uncover aren't exactly groundbreaking, but they don't need to be; the constant threat of seeing something forbidden is still palpable and thrilling.


Jason Shawhan
Grade: B+ - Censor goes back to the cult '80s, and makes horror feel dangerous again

Horror fans will get the most out of this film, though it's no formalist homage or Mad Libs pastiche. Censor is about the emotional situation that horror brings about in its characters and viewers, and its refusal to pile on specific references or indulge in any nostalgia whatsoever may keep audiences at arm's length. But it gets at the patronizing, reactionary malice of Thatcherism without underlining that subtext, and demonstrates how trauma is absorbed and weaponized by conservatism in a fashion that will fuel grad school theses for the foreseeable future. Censor's meticulous, insidious structure sticks to the subconscious; this is an auspicious debut in modern genre cinema.