INTERVIEW: ‘Censor’ revisits the era of Video Nasties
Photo: Prano Bailey-Bond directs a scene from Censor, a movie about the Video Nasty era of UK censorship. Photo courtesy of Maria Lax / Provided by Magnolia Home Entertainment with permission.
In the 1970s and 1980s, several horror films faced the scrutinizing eyes of censors in the United Kingdom, and if the violence or “obscene” material was considered too much for viewers, the film was edited or completely banned based on the decisions of the British Board of Film Censors (now the British Board of Film Classification). Some of the films during this era became known as “video nasties,” and there was a belief by some that their violent content could cause violence in society.
Today, many of the movies that fell under the watchful eyes of the censors are considered horror classics or arthouse favorites, films like Dawn of the Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
A new fictional film is set in the world of this censorship and involves the character of Enid (Niamh Algar), a film censor who looks at these bloody kills and catatonic zombies for a living, taking notes on what scenes are too much and what may need to be cut for distribution. Censor, directed by Prano Bailey-Bond, follows Enid as she uncovers a particular film that brings back repressed memories of a childhood trauma involving her missing sister. What transpires is surprising and strange for Enid, and may change her views on these so-called video nasties.
Bailey-Bond co-wrote the script with Anthony Fletcher, and their efforts are now available on DVD and on demand, courtesy of Magnolia Home Entertainment’s Magnet label.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox spoke with Bailey-Bond, a bonafide fan of the horror genre, about her thoughts on censorship, the video nasties she appreciates, and whether violent films can cause violence in society. Here’s what she had to say …
On the inspiration for Censor …
Actually it goes all the way back to 2012, and I remember it being 2012 because I was on a flight back from Miami to London. And I was reading an article about the Hammer Horror era. It was talking about how during that period censors would cut the sight of blood on the breast of a woman because they believed it would make men likely to commit rape, and I was very intrigued by this because I thought, well, surely loads of the film censors are male. So if these images are supposed to make us do these violent acts, what is it that protects the censor from losing control? And it was kind of from there that I thought I want to make a film about a film censor, but it wasn’t until 2016 that we actually started writing the script for Censor. So it was brewing there for quite a while.
On whether violence in art can produce violence in society …
I think when we’re talking about violent acts, I don’t believe that art makes people lose sight of their moral compass. I think blaming art is an easy scapegoat for not looking at the problem at the heart of it, so mental health issues, societal issues, injustices. Those are the things that make people do terrible things, but then of course the argument goes the other way. If what we see on screen doesn’t affect us, then why is advertising such a big thing? There’s that side of that argument, and I know that I’ve seen things and thought, oh that’s cool, I might try that. But it’s not the same as something that would go against my morals. I think our morals hopefully are stronger than watching something and going out and deciding to garrot somebody with a shoelace.
On how she would describe the central character of Enid …
I’d describe her as a coiled spring, as a very repressed person. The way I described her to Niamh was that she was a bit like an onion. She had all these layers that she built up around herself because she believes that deep down at her core she’s rotten and that she’s a bad person, and she’s creating her behavior, everything that she does, the way she presents herself, the way she behaves in her life is all to protect that idea of her being a bad person. So that was how I described her to Niamh.
I think I also described her as crunchy, which is maybe a funny word for a character, but she’s brittle. She’s not used to speaking about her thoughts and her feelings and her internal world. It’s all very much caught up inside her. She’s pushing it down and repressing it, and because of that it’s starting to seep out in twisted and more poisonous ways. She goes from being a coiled spring to everything kind of bursting out in this emotional explosion that she hasn’t ever learned how to control, so I think a lot of the film really is about repression and about the things we don’t want to look at in ourselves, the things we don’t want to look at in society and the things we think we shouldn’t look at in film. But for Enid, it’s about the things that are maybe part of her shadow self that she’s battling and fighting, and how those things are going to find their way to twist and turn their way out eventually.
On the research she conducted on the UK’s history of censorship …
One of the first places that we went was the BBFC, the British Board of Film Classification. It was the British Board of Film Censorship in the ‘80s, but they changed it. So we went there first off and spoke to them about how they worked during their period, what they knew about the period, and that was really helpful. Even though we weren’t saying this is the BBFC in the film, it’s a fictionalized censor’s office, but we are talking about the UK. And they are the only censorship body in the UK, so it’s obviously based on them.
We looked through the files for the films from the period, so things like I Spit on Your Grave, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Evil Dead, Possession. That was really interesting because you’re able to see the way they were talking about the films, the different points of view, the subjective elements that they bring to the films because there were no guidelines in place at this point, so a lot of it is subjective, even though they’re trying to be objective at the same time about what they’re watching.
And then also I spoke to film censors who worked during the period, and that was really interesting. … One woman [said] that she felt like the BBFC offices felt really claustrophobic because it would be daytime, but there’s no windows, and she said she didn’t really like horror, so she was sitting in the rooms watching this really uncomfortable material, which also sometimes she said felt like soft porn. And then she’d go out, and it’d be nighttime. …
That was really inspiring because you start to picture the world of the censor’s office, and you can use that to infuse your design and how you want it to look and feel. But also it was fun making this film, and researching this film was fun because I’m a big horror fan. And I could watch a lot of these films and classify it as work, so I was revisiting the nasties that I already knew and discovering new ones as well and kind of reading up about them and watching interviews with their directors and things.
On whether she believes in censorship herself …
I do think it was wrong. … I love Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It’s a pure dread film. It’s an amazing cinematic experience and doesn’t actually show that much when you break it down and you look at it. A lot of it is implied; a lot of it the sound. So it’s kind of crazy to think that they were cutting stuff out of that because what do you cut when you’re cutting away just before the violent act anyway and leaving it to our imaginations, which is often much worse.
I Spit on Your Grave was a problematic title, but I think … it’s a nannying thing. It’s a very patronizing thing to censor on behalf of other people. I think nowadays in the UK the BBFC are more focused on classification, and that gives the viewer room for them to decide what they feel is appropriate or their child, what they feel they can handle. I think that is the right way to go about this kind of thing. I do think some people want that guidance, and they want to know what they’re going into because they don’t want to be triggered or see something that is going to keep them awake at night. We might want that, but other people don’t.
So I personally disagree with censorship. I think it’s problematic in that freedom of expression through art is important, both artistically and politically, and when you start censoring things, there’s a political thing that can come into that, which I think can get really complicated and lead to much worse things perhaps.
What we’re looking at in the Video Nasty era is horror fans getting demonized as well in the UK, and I think that’s something that has taken a while for horror fans to get over. It was an easy scapegoat for all the bad things that were happening during that period, which were predominantly caused by a conservative government and [Margaret] Thatcher’s government that were cutting jobs, cutting welfare, cutting social funds and that kind of thing. It’s very convenient to be able to pass the blame and say, ‘Oh, well, it’s because of all these VHS horror films. Let’s ban them, and everything will be fine,’ which obviously we allude to toward the end if people are listening carefully at the very end of the film to the radio.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Censor, co-written and directed by Prano Bailey-Bond, is now available on DVD and on demand from Magnolia Home Entertainment’s Magnet label. Click here for more information.
