A grisly feast of scary British films is heading our way. Why now? Once seen as ‘video nasties’, many believe they have a positive role to play in a pandemic
The terror begins in the London of 1985 when Enid Baines, a film censor, spots an eerie reflection of her sister’s mysterious disappearance in some frightening footage she must view. Enid, the traumatised character at the centre of the chilling new film Censor, has to unravel the dark riddle as a public row about the impact of hardcore horror is raging.
Censor is just one film among a carmine flood of modern British horror now hitting screens and streaming services. Out in cinemas on 20 August, it has been described as a gory tribute to the “video nasties of the past”. But the film’s Welsh director, Prano Bailey Bond, is also making a timely comment on the strange therapeutic relationship between horror films and their ever-growing audience.
