[Editor's Note: For more coverage of GIFF, check out Joe Bardi's cover story on GIFF and expanded Q&A with festival President Chad Moore Mitch Perry's story on festival entry Full Signal, and more reviews of some of the films playing the festival.]
The titular neologism of Sensored promises an interesting mix of shocking material and gamesmanship with our five senses, and the film delivers on both. The first 20 minutes present what seems like another version of the oft-told serial killer tale — a plot and setting that would seem blandly comfortable on an episode of Criminal Minds. But Sensored soon takes a big turn into more interesting territory with a basic twist I won't reveal here. There are more twists as the film reaches its climax, but the path to the finale unfolds at a deliberate and sometimes boring pace. Star Trek: Voyager vet Robert Picardo does great work as the lead in an otherwise sub-par cast. Not at all your typical serial killer gore-fest, Sensored aims to be a thriller of the mind, and while it provokes some interesting thoughts and produces some disturbing scenes, it wouldn't hurt to have either a few more thrills or less of the long, contemplative pontification.
Sensored is screening Sat. March 20 at 10:30 p.m. at CinéBistro in Hyde Park.
Check out the trailer after the break …
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2010.