Censor (2021) (contains spoilers)

[holyzombiejesus]

Thought it should have it's own thread.

Censor



A woman working for a BBFC-like organisation is haunted by the disappearance of her sister. Whilst reviewing a film called "Don't Go Into The Church", she thinks she sees her. 

Primarily about how grief and guilt can fuck you up, I enjoyed this a lot. It looks amazing and it's only an hour and 20 minutes long too.

[holyzombiejesus]

Saw Censor in the cinema the other night, liked it. Agree with those who have said the short runtime and tight plotting were strengths. A more explicit link between the social commentary about Thatcherism/moral panics and the central trauma would have been nice - for the most part it made good on its promise of those themes, but feel like it would have made much more sense overall if the sister's death had been down to social spending cuts or whatever.

Also the one major scare really got me, which was a nice surprise.

[holyzombiejesus]

I'm also very keen see what both of them do next.

Spoiler alert

The ending of Censor – i.e. the serenity in her mind, against the jump cuts of the actual horror taking place – did remind me of St Maud. Though I think that's used to better/more startling effect in the final frames of St Maud, which I though was properly great. Agree that Censor was just shy of being great.

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Both are among the best horror movies I've seen this year.

[holyzombiejesus]

I saw this last night and thought it was really nicely made. I liked how the period detail was subtle and didn't resort to 80's cliches or wackiness. It was also bleakly funny at times. Been thinking about the end, the last 20 minutes or so, a lot. Still not sure what actually happened and what was imagined. I think there was a nightmarish/ imagined bit earlier in the film that was preceded by the tv static and the same happened when she was slumped in a towel after the death of Michael Smiley's character and before it all went crazy and she burst in to Lynn's office. Made me wonder if everything from then on didn't really happen. Also curious as to what extent people think she was involved in the disappearance of the sister.

Other thoughts: that beastman looked amazing, Michael Smiley seemed to be chanelling Hugh Grant in Paddington 2 and soon people won't understand what TV static is.

[lipsink]

I was sure

Spoiler alert

the director in the film looked and sounded like Kevin Eldon. But apparently it wasn't him.

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[mjwilson]

In terms of

Spoiler alert

whether she was responsible for the death of her sister

[close]

:

Coming out of the cinema I felt it was pretty evenly balanced and I could go either way on it. But since then I was reminded that

Spoiler alert

the film also contains the story of the guy who killed and who claims not to remember what happened, and that Enid was very interested by that story, so maybe that tips things to suggesting that she was the killer.

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[neveragain]

I thought it was great, a really well-made slow burner (St Maud possibly a bit tighter). The only real issue I had with it is that the video nasty footage didn't look like 80's video, which is baffling considering how much effort went into getting the period feel right. Also there was one moment someome said "This video's got loads of blur [or fuzz] on it" and it had no interference at all.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

That poster really doesn't look like it's doing the film justice based on the comments.

My favourite film is Don't Look Now so the themes on grief are interesting. The short running time and crappy promotional stuff, along with the unending awfulness of the modern horror format put me off.

Yet I remain interested.

[zomgmouse]

here are two other posters - I think none of them so far match the tone of the film but these do come a little closer

[lazyhour]

Damn, watched this yesterday and it wasn't as good as I was hoping. In my head it was absolutely going to deliver on the promise of the disappointing Berberian Sound Studio, but in truth both are only half-great films.

I like Enid's glasses though.

[colacentral]

Just watched it, hated it. Rarely seen a film so in love with itself. It's clear what the film is about within the first two minutes, you know everything it has to say, yet every five minutes you're getting hit over the head with pretentious, on the nose waffle to hammer it home - like the woman in the meeting blurting out "If they want less horror, they should stop cutting social services!"; the bloke's chest wound saying "I am the horror"; or that radio broadcast at the end saying "all the criminals are locked up." It's student film level writing.

Agreed with comments above about the accuracy of the film stuff too, which was more Garth Marenghi at the end there than whatever they were going for.

[Exposition]

Saw this back at Sundance and enjoyed it, but I can't deny I was mildly disappointed. I picked it because of the premise, but didn't think it live up to it the further along it went.

[ImmaculateClump]

Just watched it, hated it. Rarely seen a film so in love with itself.

Yeah, I didn't like this one either. The ending was aaalright.
Did you think the main actress was terrible?
Very slow and dull for most of the running time, I thought.

[RicoMNKN]

the bloke's chest wound saying "I am the horror"; or that radio broadcast at the end saying "all the criminals are locked up." It's student film level writing.

Deliberately so, wasn't it?  I thought it was supposed to be trashy aesthetics in the final act, after the film/real world start to blur.

Couldn't help but think of Blue Velvet with that end, though.

[colacentral]

The aesthetic qualities are deliberately cheesy but the dialogue quoted is virtually telling the audience what to think, as if you didn't already get the obvious point it was making the moment the film started.

It's good to compare to Blue Velvet, actually, because like you said, it has a similarly naive day dreamy ending, but unlike Censor, it's not there to come out and hold your hand or stroke the ego of the viewer. It's not entirely clear if the Blue Velvet ending is hopeful or cynical, or what it might be suggesting about everything that came before it. The Censor ending is there to give you a pat on the head and make sure you got it. Blue Velvet gives you ambiguity; Censor gives you easy answers.

[TrenterPercenter]

This film is way over-hyped; it's not particularly good; it's not terrible but it is absolutely student level film writing as another poster has said; messy ending also because they didn't know how to finish it off. 

I was expecting much better from everything I'd heard about it.