When The Screaming Starts Review

Top 10 film of 2022

When the Screaming Starts review.

When the Screaming Starts is a fun treat streaming now on Screambox. It wisely uses a documentary story without forcing the movie to be filmed in the format at all times. Reaping the benefits of the storytelling device without being trapped by the medium is a solid start. The funny script and committed performances push it firmly into entertaining territory.

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When the Screaming Starts

Directed by Conor Boru

Written by Conor Boru and Ed Hartland

Starring Ed Hartland, Jared Rogers, Kaitlin Reynell and Katherine Bennett-Fox

When The Screaming Starts Review

When the Screaming Starts checks the most important box of horror comedy. It’s very funny. One of the easiest traps that the horror comedy subgenre falls into is trying to give an ample amount of both horror and comedy. That’s not the easiest path to success. It’s incredibly hard to pull off. Usually what you end up with is a lackluster horror story with some funny lines thrown on top.

If you can pull it off…you can end up with absolute classics like An American Werewolf in London and Scream. Those are stories set fully in a horror world that bring a laugh rate to rival most comedies. If you remove the comedy, you are still left with a great werewolf story and an effective whodunnit.

The more successful play is to make a comedy set inside of a world heightened by a horror premise. Think Zombieland and What We Do in the Shadows. The situation may inform the comedy…but the comedy is the point. Remove the comedy from these and you have nothing. When the Screaming Starts aims squarely at this type.

Investigative journalist Norman Graysmith (Jared Rogers) believes he has found his big break when he documents the life of aspiring serial killer Aidan (Ed Hartland). Aidan wants to become a famous serial killer and Norman wants to become famous from covering it. Aiden sets out to form his own Manson Family like following, recruiting like minded people to do the killing for him.

Being a funny movie makes When the Screaming Starts an entertaining watch. What makes it a great movie is the performances of its cast. The characters who join Aidan’s family are perfectly cast. Aidan’s death obsessed girlfriend Claire (Kaitlin Reynell). Amy (Octavia Gilmore), a driven woman with family issues of her own. Psychotic twins Viktoria and Veronica (Var and Ronja Haugholt). Jack (Yasen Atour), a fed-up deli owner. Masoud (Kave Niku), a man who thinks he is joining a yoga club and doesn’t speak English very well. It’s an eclectic group wonderfully played by the ensemble.

Aidan and Norman live at the heart of When the Screaming Starts. Norman sticks to the interviewing early but can’t help but put himself in the middle of the action when…well…the screaming starts. Aidan, ironically, is nowhere to be found when the group begins to do what killers do. He’s content to be the brains of the operation, hands clean and safe at the groups base of operations. This leads to obvious complications within the group. Questions like…why aren’t you doing any of the killing? How are you going to pay for this home base? When does yoga start? Aidan doesn’t have a good answer to anything.

On top of its clever, well delivered script…When the Screaming Starts has another big check in its favor. It doesn’t over rely on the documentary format. This is a loose implementation of the format. There are talking heads, everything is given the feel as if a camera crew is documenting it…but it also allows everything to feel like a movie. The visual language of the movie is definitively that of a film…not a documentary. Cuts between people and action feel natural. They show conversations between parties without the documentary style camera swivels. It cross cuts back without seeing camera people in shots where they’d have to be for the shot to exist.

This allows When the Screaming Starts to have the best of both worlds. You get the undistracted view of a film…with the comedic benefits of the mockumentary format. It takes full advantage of the latter. Featuring plenty of comedic beats and landing an impressive percentage of them…this is one of the funniest horror comedies in years. The blood starts flowing, and we get some twists and turns. Both funny…and not. When the Screaming Starts is a consistently entertaining film.

Scare Value

When the Screaming Starts is a funny, entertaining time with a group of murderers, wannabe murders and a guy who walked into the wrong interview. A great cast brings a fun group of characters to life. Fast paced with a consistent tone and featuring enough kills to satisfy those seeking more than just comedy. There are some endearing characters mixed in with the obvious crazies. Their stories, and fates, are fun to follow.

4/5