While it seems like a long time ago now, the 1980s was a great period of change. The social and political unrest of the previous decade was replaced by a Conservative government led by the inimitable Margaret Thatcher and her free market politics. Technology was moving at pace and cheap access to VHS meant people could enjoy films at their leisure. There was also a wave of neo-puritan activism and their main target was the phenomenon of ‘video nasties’. Censor immerses itself in the period.
Enid Baines (Niamh Algar) works for the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and is known for her thorough and comprehensive approach to the job of safeguarding the minds of the British people. A stickler for detail, she never shies away from whatever horrors filmmakers place in front of the censors. Enid busies herself in the work, trying to avoid thinking about her sister who disappeared when they were children. She becomes increasingly obsessed that an actress (Sophia La Porta) who stars in a number of particularly unpleasant films, bearing a strong resemblance to her missing sibling.
Censor is a British horror which revels in the the moral panic of the mid-1980s, playing with it in a number of imaginative ways. Prano Bailey-Bond’s feature debut works thanks to a full-blooded performance from Algar and a great reverence for the low budget horror of the era. As Enid descends into a downward spiral of obsession and guilt, Censor tracks her mental deterioration through a beautifully crafted and lovingly made slice of genre cinema.
Special features:
- New audio commentary by Director and Co-Writer Prano Bailey-Bond and Executive Producer Kim Newman
- New audio commentary by Prano Bailey-Bond, Director of Photography Annika Summerson, Editor Mark Towns and Sound Designer Tim Harrison
- New audio commentary by Kat Ellinger, Lindsay Hallam and Miranda Corcoran
- My Own Nasty: a new interview with Prano Bailey-Bond
- Penning a Nasty: a new interview with Co-Writer Anthony Fletcher
- The Censor: a new interview with Actor Niamh Algar
- Nasty Images: a new interview with Annika Summerson
- I’m Cutting It: a new interview with Mark Towns
- Nasty Sounds: a new interview with Composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch
- The Making of Censor featuring cast and crew interviews
- Nasty: a short film by Prano Bailey-Bond
- Deleted Scenes
- Enid’s Gaze: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas on Censor
- Screening Q&A with Prano Bailey-Bond and Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch hosted by Jed Shepherd
- Prano Bailey-Bond in conversation with BBFC Compliance Officer David Hyman
- My Nasty Memories by David Gregory
- Ban the Sadist Videos! Part One & Two feature length documentary
- English subtitles for the hearing impaired
The standard edition of Censor is released on Blu-Ray by Second Sight on 31 October.
