Movie Review: Censor

credit: Censor

The job of a censor can’t be easy, especially since many people can’t fully grasp the idea of why some parts of a movie or TV show are censored and why others aren’t. Enid is one of those who feels the sting of the words that people use when she and her peers determine what’s okay to show to the public and what needs to be banned. To be fair, they do their part to make sure the general public isn’t offended or unduly terrified by what they see on the big or small screen. Unfortunately, this isn’t always bound to win a censor a lot of friends since people don’t like to be treated like children who can’t handle the things they watch. On top of that, Enid is still unwilling to let the disappearance of her sister Alice go, despite the fact that this happened when they were still very young. While her parents have moved and declared their daughter legally dead, Enid is still convinced that she’s simply lost and waiting to be found. 

credit: Censor

The movie takes a while to build. 

There are a lot of disturbing images in this movie, that’s certain, but it’s also expected since the job that Enid is performing is a job that a lot of people wouldn’t choose right off the bat simply because censorship is seen as a limitation by a lot of artists that don’t want to see their work but into pieces. To explain her job and show what she does, there are several scenes that feel purposefully tedious and bothersome as she and her fellow censors go about discussing one movie or another. And the strained relationship she has with her parents is anything but healthy since she’s adamant about her sister, and her parents simply want to forget. When things do start to build up, it becomes a bit manic as Enid starts to follow a line of reasoning concerning her sister that is inspired by the events she witnesses in a movie she’s watching for her work. 

Enid’s descent into madness is easy to watch. 

Once Enid starts to think about her sister and how the movie that set her off imitates the details that she can recall from when her sister was lost, her mental state starts a swift decline that sends her down a dark path as her attitude and her mental acuity begins to change. At the beginning of the movie, she’s attentive, shows her intelligence, she’s quiet, but she’s also focused. That changes quickly when she watches the movie that gets her thinking even more of her sister, and as things go along, Enid starts to lose herself in the idea that her sister is alive and that there are people who can tell her what she needs, or rather wants to know. Eventually, she does find someone that can give her the information she wants, but after a mistaken motive and a short tussle, she ends up watching him die as he falls backward, impaling himself on an award that punches through the back of his neck and exits his mouth. Yeah, it gets a little gruesome, but since that’s part of this story, it’s not hard to imagine that it was coming. 

credit: Censor

When Enid snaps, it’s not pretty, but it’s kind of easy to understand. 

During this entire movie, it’s fair to imagine that Enid’s mind is firmly on her sister and the idea that she might still be alive. When she heads off to a site where a director that’s famous for horror movies is filming, she’s mistaken for an actress and put to work. Unfortunately, the circumstances behind her sister’s disappearance, her already crumbling mental fortitude, and the stress of her situation catch up at that moment, and as the actor playing the villain looms up in front of her, Enid snaps and takes an ax to the man as she buries it in his chest, horrifying the other actress that’s in the scene. Covered in blood, smiling maniacally, and still ready to do some damage, as is proved when she takes the head of the director, prompting all others around to take off. 

It’s fitting that this movie has a crazy ending. 

After killing the actor and the director, Enid is under the illusion that she’s found her sister, Alice, and has to take her away from this place. The scene shifts suddenly to a far more positive world in which crime has stopped, all violence has been taken care of, and things are as peaceful as they can be. In her vision, Enid sees herself returning Alice to her parents outside of their home, as everything as it should be. Unfortunately, it’s revealed that this is a vision, a hallucination, and instead of being thankful, the woman that she’s abducted, who is not Alice, is begging Enid’s parents to help her.

It’s a slow movie with a trippy end, ’nuff said.