Two trauma-horror films

Trauma appears to be the operative mode in an increasing amount of horror films, the genre that gives me no peace. Sometimes this leads to swill like Malignant or The Empty Man. But here are two good ones.

In Saint Maud (Rose Glass, 2019), Morfydd Clark plays Katie, a palliative care nurse who has recently lost a patient although Glass never makes it clear if the death is Katie's fault or not. Now under the name Maud, Katie tends to Amanda Köhl (Jennifer Ehle, still convincing me she's Meryl Streep's sister), a famous dancer terminally ill with lymphoma. Maud has grown devoutly religious since her patient's death and takes it upon herself to save Amanda's soul, especially when she learns Amanda's paying a companion, Carol (Lily Frazer), to have sex with her. Amanda is amenable to Maud's crusade depending on her level of desperation in the face of death. But Maud becomes violent at one of Amanda's urbane parties and she is promptly fired sending her deeper into her religious fervor. 

As I always say in relation to so many horror films, Saint Maud is over when it's over. I'm not sure what to do with it. But as a portrait of a woman spiraling out of control (or taking extreme measures to gain control of her life), it's plenty pungent. And 84 minutes is a humane-enough running time so I don't rue the expenditure unlike Malignant or The Empty Man which top out at 111 minutes and 137 minutes (!) respectively. 

Censor (Prano Bailey-Bond, 2021) is far more my speed. At the height of the Video Nasties era in 1985, Enid Baines (Niamh Algar) works as a censor for the British Board of Film Classification. She reviews a film with the redolent psychotronic title of Don't Go in the Church directed by sleaze merchant Frederick North (Adrian Schiller). The scenario resembles the circumstances of her sister's disappearance when she was a child which gives Enid hope that she may still be alive. When she tracks down a copy of one of North's banned films, Enid believes that the lead is indeed her sister grown up. She confronts North and more tragedy ensues.

Like Saint Maude, Censor devolves into the requisite gore beats for the finale. But it's plenty chewy. Enid matches Maud's intensity. But her arc allows the viewer to ponder not just the role of censorship but the function of horror films. Are horror films cathartic enough to redirect our basest instincts in socially responsible ways? Or do they augment our basest instincts and thus require censorship? Or do the horror of the Thatcher years and its venal bootstraps philosophy render such questions moot? In any event, Censor has the exact same running time as Saint Maud! Watch them both instead of The Empty Man!

Saint Maud: B+

Censor: A-minus