Censor co-writer and director Prano Bailey-Bond talks to Isaac Feldberg about video nasties, mass hysteria and being inspired by The Beyond.
“All these violent paintings in galleries are elevated and celebrated, but somehow cinema that’s violent has in the past been frowned upon.” —Prano Bailey-Bond
In 1980s Britain, low-budget horror titles swept the country’s then-nascent VHS market and sparked a moral panic as the tabloid press, government officials and conservative activists decried the films’ violent content, believing it would corrupt a generation. Before legislation was passed to bring home video under the jurisdiction of the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), the Director of Public Prosecutions legitimized this hysteria by issuing a list of 72 so-called “video nasties”, from Possession to Cannibal Holocaust, that it alleged had violated obscenity laws.
Around half were ultimately prosecuted, as police raided video shops and moral crusaders spread misinformation on the airwaves. But inside one family home in rural Wales, “I was watching whatever I could get my hands on,” says Prano Bailey-Bond, co-writer and director of Censor, a psychological horror steeped in the world of video nasties.
Set in 1985, Bailey-Bond’s stylishly subversive thriller channels the period’s repressive atmosphere and underlying absurdity while honoring the transgressive cheap thrills of the nasties at its center. Niamh Algar stars as Enid, a tightly wound censor who approaches her job diligently (“Eye gouging must go!” reads one entry on her notepad) but lacks a life outside the office.
Screening a mysterious horror title one day, Enid discovers sequences that remind her strongly of a childhood trauma—the unsolved disappearance of her sister. As she investigates, the palpable gloom of Thatcher’s London gives way to delirious, giallo-inspired dream sequences, and the picture quality of Censor itself appears to break down, aspect ratios shifting to trap viewers inside a vintage VHS frame.
“The film is about format,” explains Bailey-Bond, who shot mostly on 35mm and wanted Censor to eventually resemble a video nasty in its increasing throbs of gore, color and static. It was especially important to capture the faded look of video nasties that had been circulating underground for years. “Fans were getting hold of nasties and creating next-generation copies, so the image was degrading slightly with each VHS.” Viewers rewinding and rewatching the scary bits only degraded tapes further, she recalls. “People would talk about their experiences in that sense, knowing something really horrible was coming up because the picture got more fuzzy.”
Prano Bailey-Bond on the set of ‘Censor’.
Growing up, Bailey-Bond lived far from the nearest cinema. Instead, she worshipped at the altar of her parents’ VHS shelf, filled with tapes recorded off low-signal Welsh television. As video nasties made headlines, she was too young to grasp the controversy but old enough to take an interest in the films. The Evil Dead and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, two better-known nasties, were among her first.
But Bailey-Bond believes she was first set on a path toward filmmaking after seeing David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. “I love the way it speaks to the dark underbelly of society, and to the dark side within us as people,” the director says. Initially gobsmacked by the film’s uncanny mystery of sexual obsession and shadow selves, she kept coming back. “I’d been swept away by the Lynchian universe at first,” she says. “But the more I analyzed it the more clever it became.”
Initially, Bailey-Bond pictured herself on screen, starring in the kinds of films that had mesmerized her. While studying performing arts she directed an absurdist play, The Chairs by Eugène Ionesco, and caught the filmmaking bug. “I was quite blown away by the experience of shaping a performance from the outside,” she recalls. “I also used to paint quite a lot, so it felt like directing was a way of me fusing performance and painting to create images.”
Niamh Algar as Enid in ‘Censor’.
Bailey-Bond’s obsession with film exceeded her love of theater. “I felt more liberated by it,” she says. “You could control point of view and work in a more intricate way with sound.” After studying at the London College of Printing, she started at Goldcrest Films as a runner and worked various post-production jobs, including as an editor. It would be cheaper to make movies, she knew, if she could do more herself.
The first seed of an idea for Censor came not from video nasties but their precursor, Hammer horror, which shocked 1970s censors with its bloodletting and then-scandalous eroticism. Titles like The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula and Twins of Evil starred legends like Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, but they were racier than Hammer’s famed gothic horror.
“During that period, censors would automatically cut any image of blood on the breast of a woman, because they believed it would make men likely to commit rape,” explains Bailey-Bond, whose research never satisfied the biggest question this practice raised. “Surely, most of the censors in that period would have been men—so, I thought, what stops the censor from losing control, if these images are meant to make us do horrible things?”
To get inside a censor’s head, Bailey-Bond and co-writer Anthony Fletcher spent time in the archives of the BBFC (now the British Board of Film Classification), examining notes on nasties like The Last House on the Left and The Driller Killer. “Even though you’ve only got their initials at the end of each comment, you start to see each individual censor’s personality coming through in the way they viewed the film,” she says. “Everybody’s got a political angle on why they’re there, what they think is and isn’t okay.”
As Enid develops an unhealthy fascination with a (fictional) filmmaker named Frederick North, Censor delves into two of his video nasties. Filming them on Super 8mm, Bailey-Bond used these films-within-the-film to honor her heroes. Asunder, with its hallucinatory atmosphere, evoked Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Lucio Fulci’s midnight classic The Beyond. “The end of that film is hell in a great way,” she says enthusiastically of the latter. “It’s not disgusting, but it makes you feel sick, the nightmarishness of where those characters end up.”
North’s Don’t Go in the Church, meanwhile, conjures The Blood on Satan’s Claw, about two girls in a dark forest; its title also references Don’t Go in the Woods and Don’t Go in the House. Bailey-Bond says it’s most indebted to “haunting” no-budget Axe (alternately titled Lisa, Lisa).
Surprisingly, one nasty that didn’t influence Censor is The Witch Who Came from the Sea, about an emotionally scarred woman who lashes out in ways she can’t control. “It feels like a companion piece in some ways, looking at this traumatized woman and this strange kaleidoscope of memory and experience all clashing together,” says Bailey-Bond, who saw the film, considered a masterpiece by many, after filming wrapped.
Censor is a cautionary tale, but it takes a clear stance against “depiction is dangerous” rhetoric. “No piece of art is going to make somebody go out and do something immoral,” affirms Bailey-Bond. “The reasons people do terrible things are much more deep-rooted. It’s important we look at that and at mental health, at society and the way we look after each other.”
“That was something I was always thinking about in terms of how Enid communicates in Censor, how closed-off she is from everyone else. She’s left to deal with everything on her own. That’s much more dangerous than any film.”
Related content
Cole’s alphabetical list of video nasties
Justin LaLiberty’s list of genre cinema directed by women and movies shot on film from 2013 onwards
Dominic Corry’s interview with one of Censor’s producers, Ant Timpson, on his feature directorial debut, Come to Daddy
Follow Isaac and Prano on Letterboxd
‘Censor’ is in theaters now and on demand from June 18.
Self-described cinedork and Mayhem filmmaker Joe Lynch tells Horrorville’s Brett Petersel about cinematic sausage, getting to direct Creepshow episodes and being a three-star starter on Letterboxd.
“Even when I watch what I would think is a real stinker, I also consider that there were many people involved in that film who didn’t walk on set going ‘okay people, let’s screw this up today!’” —Joe Lynch
It is always a pleasure to find film directors lurking on Letterboxd. Joe Lynch is a bona fide, OG member, having racked up more than 1,500 diary entries, giving half-star reviews to his own work, and creating lists of the movies that have influenced the making of his films.
There are the films that were in Lynch’s subconscious when he made Mayhem, a workplace splatter led by Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving. There are the movies he watched while researching the Salma Hayek-starring Everly. And this just in: films that influenced The Right Snuff, one of Lynch’s two episodes for the new Creepshow series—based on the 1982 horror-comedy classic and its sequels—which premieres on Shudder April 15.
Like so many of us, Lynch took time during the pandemic to catch up on films he had neglected to watch in spite of a previous career as a video-store clerk (a Criterion Channel subscription helped him get on top of the backlog). In this edition of ‘How I Letterboxd’, Lynch discusses how those classics have informed his craft, who his Letterboxd faves are, and why the horror genre is the future of the industry.
Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving in Joe Lynch’s ‘Mayhem’ (2017).
How long have you been on Letterboxd?
Joe Lynch: I remember when Letterboxd was in its beta phase way back in good ol’ 2012 and I couldn’t wait to sign up, breathlessly waiting for an invite to the party. At the time, I had a digital database where I would log movies I’ve seen, but it was always subject to whatever laptop or device I had handy and would just be a mess of titles with no rhyme or reason.
When a member follows you, what should they expect?
I put it right up top in my description: “I am not a critic”, just a lover of cinema. At first I didn’t want to write “reviews” in the description, especially since I first started using the service whilst in the throes of a horrible experience making a film that I thought would bury me and I’d never work again. I was like, and I still feel this way, “who am I to rip on a movie when someone can throw it right back at me? Like ‘dude, you directed Knights of Badassdom, sit down’.”
I’ve always had the highest regard for filmmakers who can get anything made. So even when I watch what I would think is a real stinker, I also consider that there were many people involved in that film who didn’t walk on set going “okay people, let’s screw this up today!” but instead were trying their best and circumstances just got in the way, which always happens. Having made a few films and TV now, I’m fully aware of the trials and tribulations that go into making a movie and have all the respect in the world for anyone who can steer that ship to completion. It’s hard making movies and even harder making one that is your original vision [and] that is widely embraced by an audience.
I have very weird tastes so don’t be shocked if you glance at my recent activity and you see Casablanca, The Silence of the Lambs or Bigger Than Life right next to The Legend of Billie Jean, Con Air or Candyman 3. I’m usually bouncing all over the place in terms of what kinds of movies I’m screening. From films recommended to me, to films that I may be watching for research, or even just how I’m feeling that day and maybe need a good laugh or a good cry or to be scared stiff. I like that kind of variety. There’s something out there for everyone and every emotion. If anything, I’d say expect the unexpected when it comes to my viewing habits.
What’s your favorite feature to use and why?
One of the residual effects of working at video stores as a kid was my desire to siphon people’s tastes in movies and possibly recommend films to others as well, so my favorite feature is the ease of use in logging films and being able to quickly recall those films as well in the event someone asks me “what’s something I should watch?”. Getting older, the “employee’s picks” in my head is getting a little harder to cross-reference than usual so to have the ability to whip out my phone and say “oh man, I just watched Possession and it was awesome!” is exponentially helpful to a cinedork like myself.
‘Big Trouble in Little China’ (1986)—a five-star film says Joe Lynch.
How do you rate the films you watch? For example, what type of film is worthy of a five-star review?
Funny, I always start out on three-stars mainly because I’m so proud of the filmmakers actually getting it completed! I’ve been there! I’m somewhat biased in my reflections because I’m always rooting for the artists and from there, it’s usually gauged on both an emotional level and a technical level. I always get made fun of while watching movies because I can point out hidden cuts or when a shot is reversed but [I’m] not trying to point out flaws, it's just how my brain is wired at this point. When you pull the curtain back enough to see how the cinematic sausage is made, it's harder and harder to objectively watch a movie without trying to dissect how it was done. I try so hard to shut that part of my brain off to just passively enjoy a movie but it’s tough. I usually skew towards the positive.
The films I’ve given five-stars are movies that have continually affected me over the years and have inspired me as a person and a filmmaker, which is everything from The Empire Strikes Back, Dawn of the Dead and When Harry Met Sally... to Big Trouble in Little China, The Blob, The Last of the Mohicans. I looked back at my five-stars and it’s mostly movies that made a significant impression on me from an early age and continue to do so, maybe even more so as I get older and I view these movies in a different light.
The anthology show Creepshow returns to Shudder this month. Tell us about the two episodes you directed for the series, ‘Pipe Screams’ and ‘The Right Snuff’.
Both Creepshow and Creepshow 2 were important films in my youth and even today, they were some of the first movies I remember where I wasn’t quite sure if I was supposed to be scared or laugh. These films proclaimed we could do both! As a disciple of George A. Romero, Stephen King and Tom Savini, Creepshow really shaped how I watched movies and how I made them—consider the anthology I did a few years back, Chillerama, as a prime example. So when Shudder announced the show, I had to do everything on my part to convince them I could take the baton from these masters of the macabre and do them and the many fans proud.
To come to the table and say “I want ‘The Right Snuff’ to feel like 2001: A Space Odyssey crashed into The Andromeda Strain, and ‘Pipe Screams’ is my homage to The Blob and Delicatessen”—and then everyone just immediately getting it—was a dream. Between the casts I was lucky enough to work with and the amazing crew, especially the FX geniuses at KNB, it really was one of those dream jobs I’ll never forget. I hope audiences dig the madness we conjured up on those!
Season 2 of the Shudder series ‘Creepshow’ returns to the horror streamer this month. A third season has been ordered.
If you were to expand the Mayhem universe, what would it look like?
We tried! I pitched the producers the idea of the ID-7 virus in other locations and situations because in essence the idea of being uninhibited by mental and emotional constraints is so ripe. My favorite was the idea that it would get loose in a Wal-Mart or a mall on Black Friday when consumers swarm to these department stores for the best deals. You’ve seen the videos, it’s just mass hysteria. The footage already out there would have been perfect to use already and those people aren’t even infected!
Sadly it didn’t come to pass, mainly because they asked “how do we get Steven and Samara back?” and I didn’t want to force those characters into that scenario, Die Hard 2 style. Plus they’re both huge stars now and likely unavailable for the next twelve years. But the ideas people have thrown out to me show that it was impactful enough to warrant variant scenarios in a “what if?” way that’s really exciting. Who knows, maybe the ID-7 virus could find its way onto the set of a movie production…
What excites you about the future of filmmaking, especially in horror films?
The world is embracing new faces and voices more than ever and it means we’re getting stories that may not have ever had the chance to flourish and be seen and heard before. For the longest time the system was much more rigid because executives and producers thought that the audience was much less accepting of a wider world view in cinema and I think the last ten years has proven them wrong. There shouldn’t be any more “token” character or “strong [insert non-white-male] character” descriptions in development meetings. I hear it less and less, which is great because that’s not our world and since cinema—especially horror—is and always should be a reflection of our culture and times, it should reflect these evolutions as well.
When I made Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, the discussions over how one of the characters—a Black character played by Texas Battle—survived at the end was not in the original script but I pushed for it mainly because it was rare for the Black character to do so in a horror film. That shouldn’t be an anomaly! Why can’t there be a ‘final guy’ or have the survivors be LGBT+ or a POC and not the usual stereotypes?
I think now it’s more commonplace to see this and it excites me for the future of the genre that artists are being more welcome to express themselves without it feeling like it’s a gimmick or a twist on the norm.
I think generations of kids growing up with horror now are gonna see these strides in the storytelling—and who’s telling the stories—and push it even further. Places like Netflix and Shudder are willing to take chances with new voices more than the studio system, now more than ever, and that’s only going to produce some great stories now and in the future.
Erica Leehrsen and Texas Battle in a scene from ‘Wrong Turn 2: Dead End’ (2007).
How has the pandemic affected your creativity and influenced your work moving forward?
Aside from losing a bunch of gigs due to the shutdown and being delayed on shooting Creepshow—which was a blessing in disguise considering the time we took to further develop the scripts and design of each episode—one of the main effects of the pandemic was how it gave many of us the time to catch up on a lot of films, mainly older ones. As you’d see from my diary entries on this very site, my viewing habits changed from a lot of modern films in that rat-race of catching up with the latest release, to mainly watching films I loved in the past and a lot of ’40s to ’70s films that I never got around to.
We have the tendency as film lovers to keep a mental list of films we’ll eventually get around to as if we have all the time in the world, but with the threat of the apocalypse and no real new content coming our way at the usual rapid clip, it was so gratifying to buy an annual subscription to Criterion Channel and start watching films like The Old Dark House, The Crimson Kimono, Contempt and many others.
All of these films impacted how I view film now and have bled into future projects I’m working on—especially on the technical side, when the world wasn’t influenced vicariously through MTV coverage and letting scenes play out in masters or longer takes, relishing in the performance or the mise-en-scéne. So, silver linings!
Before we go, who are some of your favorite follows on Letterboxd?
I’m a big fan of Sean Baker, who I’ve known for almost 20 years now! We worked together in NYC and I was already a big Greg the Bunny fan but our mutual appreciation for fringe and exploitation films, especially international horror and genre films, seems to have bonded us for life. I love when he posts what he’s watching. Even if he’s just saying he screened something on Blu or streaming, his thoughts on cinema are always enjoyable and engaging.
In the same breath, filmmaker Jim Cummings has the best perspective on modern filmmaking and he’s clearly a big fan of using Letterboxd, so whenever I see peers like them using the app it makes me feel less like an obsessive movie dork myself, who should be getting back to work.
Some of the other follows I really enjoy are cineastes like Elric Kane and Brian Saur, who are the hosts of the New Beverly podcast Pure Cinema. Writers Anya Stanley, David Chen, Walter Chaw and Lindsay Blair Goeldner, musician and filmmaker Brendon Small, writer and critic Brian Tallerico, author Glenn Kenny, filmmaker Rodman Flender—just to name a few people who clearly love film and love sharing their thoughts on films in a very thoughtful way.
More times than not, I’m getting some great advice for what to watch next in my “new from friends” section! Because, like being at the video store, it’s casual conversations like the ones on Letterboxd that I love and always steering me to new films or revisiting old ones with a new perspective.
Related content
Joe’s film influences for ‘The Right Snuff’ Creepshow episode
The Video Store: Hollie Horror’s list of horror films with memorable scenes in video stores
Office Workplace Horror: J Cara’s list of office horror and workplace thrillers
Follow Brett on Letterboxd
Follow Horrorville—the home for horror on Letterboxd
Had a blast at @_horrorville @halloweendepot today!!!! I got to meet Andy and Kyle from Child’s Play and Chucky ,the awesome @alex_vincent (he gives great hugs🤗) and @christineelisemccarthy and Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th part 2 @warringtongillet What an awesome day for a horror fan 😁 #horrorville #halloweendepot #childsplay #childsplay2 #chuckyseries #fridaythe13thpart2 #horrorfanatic (at Halloween Depot) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp_fnHsJrQJ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
So I got to spend my Sunday by meeting @davidhowardthornton aka Art the Clown from @terrifier2_official 😱😱😱 He was the absolute sweetest! This was at @_horrorville @halloweendepot 🥰🥰🥰 #davidhowardthornton #arttheclown #terrifier #horrorville #halloweendepot #horrorfanatic (at Halloween Depot) https://www.instagram.com/p/CmDFZu2JHTu/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
It was summer in Horrorville. The school had just ended.
Kloe was on her way home, when something came under her foot. When she lifted it, she found a bright red stone gleaming in the sun.
It was very beautiful with intricate designs on the back and a long chain, to put around the neck. But the most intriguing part, was the red stone. It was very similar to a ruby but when she took a closer look at it, she could see a red fluid moving across it.
Since it was so beautiful, she wore it each and every day. And when school started and she got many compliments on it.
One day she was sitting at the back of the class with her friend, when a teacher she always hated scolded and humiliated her in front of the class and called her parents. Kloe silently wished, that she would die. In fact Kloe even pictured her death quite clearly in her head. At the same time she was rubbing the locket with her hand. It had become a sort of hobby of hers.
When she went home later, that day her school called to inform the students about their teachers’ death. She had been strangled by the telephone cord and died instantly.
That was when Kloe realized what she had done. But it did not frighten her, she was thrilled to have such a power in her possession.
Perhaps she was naive, or perhaps the locket had chosen its owner wisely depending on their lack of remorse.
So Kloe often did things she should not have. She often misused her power.
And they say, everything comes back to you. So when one day. Kloe was sitting in her creative writing class the teacher gave them an assignment:” Describe a death of a person in detail, and not just any persons’ death, but your own.”
Motivated by this new idea. Kloe began to write a gruesome tale of her own death. Bloody and gory. And after a while she became pale, as she realized, that while being so engaged in writing she hadn’t payed attention to her hand,that was currently rubbing the locket….
Picked up the latest issue of #ruemorgue and a new #horrormagazine called HorrorVille. First issue and from the UK. Looks pretty good so far. Expensive though 😕 #horrorville #horror #horrorfan #horrorobsessed #horrorjunkie
