Censor

 There's been a few exploitation and '70s style extreme gore throwbacks over the years, but Censor is the first genre movie I've watched that centers around and is ultimately about the UK's Video Nasty panic.

 The way I understand it is that in the dawn of the VHS/Beta era films that were refused a classification on cinemas, or never sought it out, could go straight to home video without any oversight; there they could be prosecuted for obscenity, but many productions chanced it anyway. This eventually caused a big moral panic and media circus in the mid-eighties, which in turn led to the establishment of a regulation board (the BBFC). Lists of forbidden nasties were maintained (some but not all of the films were released later with cuts) and held a grip on public imagination for a long time. Hell - even I knew about them at the time, and I was living in another continent. Of course, we used the lists as a guide to find stuff to watch, but hey.

 It's a really interesting subject, and a textbook example of political and media scare mongering, including the focus on the children.

 As a foreigner, Censor's real-world time frame is a bit hard to work out; there's a news item about the miner's strike, which would date this to 1985 at the latest, I think? But that's the year the censor board would have been created, and their operation seems pretty well established in the film. There's a (fictional?) plot point involving the movie Demented, which would place this after 1987, when it was (re)released in the real world with cuts; So... dunno, and of course in the end it doesn't really matter; It seems to be a pretty loose take. Its writer/director, Prano Bailey-Bond (Anthony Fletcher co-wrote) was born in 1982, for fuck's sake.

 I'm going to avoid going into specific plot points, but it's hard to keep talking about this without inadvertently spoiling anything. So be warned.

 The protagonist and titular Censor Enid (Niamh Algar works for the BBFC - the agency in charge of evaluating films, giving them an age rating, and suggesting cuts (though this is blurred in the film, it seems to imply they make the cuts themselves). She's a mousy sort, tightly buttoned down, which... yeah, this is not a subtle movie. Enid's a true believer, someone who thinks what she does is making a difference, and also the type of person who would be worn down by what I might jokingly call a dream job. Jokingly; The film effectively portrays the sort of (negative) impact this sort of thing can have with a harrowing scene where she and a co-worker have to watch a long rape scene. The focus is kept on their reaction... It's really well crafted.

 The situation at work is stressful, and on a personal level a chat with her parents introduces a childhood trauma: her sister went missing under mysterious circumstances under her watch, and Enid, who remembers nothing of the incident, is still looking for closure. So when a nasties director specifically asks for her to evaluate his new horror movie, and the movie seems to echo the few memories she has of her sister's disappearance, things take a dark turn.

 It's an effective and tense story, and a fun ride while it lasts (it wraps up in under 83 minutes*). I have some issues with it, but the execution is good enough even if the destination is a bit underwhelming.

 The budget is pretty low, but well spent with convincing period locations and good actors. And they have some great material to work with: the dialogue is sharp, well observed, and fun. The story moves somewhat slowly, but it's well-paced and manages a couple of excellent, suspenseful sequences.

 As for the gore, there's some pretty satisfying bloodletting, for a psychological thriller - more Dario Argento than Tom Savini, although there's a neat little reference to Evil Dead 2. The use of the VHS video format and some old horror movie conventions (as filtered through a more modern/nostalgic lens) is fun as well.

 It's all highly allegorical, so if that sort of thing bothers you you might want to stay away. The message is pretty well woven into its plot, but as it built into a crescendo at the end I did ultimately find the lack of subtlety and surprises disappointing. But not enough to stop me from recommending it.

*: eighty-three minutes - one minute shorter than Beavis and Butthead do the Universe!