Critic Reviews

An ambitious, clever, and inventive psychogenic fugue, Censor is rough around the edges and shot on a shoestring, sure, however Bailey-Bond has compelling and vital comments to make on art, media consumption, politics, and society.

This thrilling, dizzying debut from Welsh writer-director Prano Bailey-Bond is a nostalgic treat for anyone old enough to remember the infamous “video nasties” scare of the early 80s. Yet beneath the retro surface lies a more universal tale about the power of horror to confront our deepest fears – a timeless celebration of the liberating nature of the dark side.

Censor is an off-brand horror treat that walks the distance between artistic freedom and the scrutiny of morbid excess to which the title refers.

Welsh director Prano Bailey-Bond’s feature debut, Censor, is one of those horror movies that sticks with you well after the credits roll. That’s because it doesn’t follow the typical horror movie formula.

Censor is a bold artistic statement, inspired by the history of its own genre, though it’s not an uncritical assertion, posing complicated questions about media effects without offering easy answers.

Censor is an impressive, visually-stunning, deeply disturbing debut from Bailey-Bond and a showcase for Algar, who gives a truly spectacular performance.

Censor’s meticulous, insidious structure sticks to the subconscious; this is an auspicious debut in modern genre cinema.

With production designer Paulina Rzeszowska and cinematographer Annika Summerson, Bailey-Bond creates something almost unbearably close and oppressive, like the bottom of a murky fish tank. It’s a very elegant and disquieting debut.

Debut director Prano Bailey-Bond crafts a stylish, effective horror that is both an homage to genre cinema of that period and a psychological dive into the combined traumas of grief and guilt.

Censor wears its genre influences on its sleeve – The Shining, Cronenberg, Carrie and Peter Strickland’s similarly themed Berberian Sound Studio – but it’s very much its own thing.