When the Screaming Starts

Didn't go into the film with much expectations but I was extremely surprised. It starts mostly as a comedy but has enough horror elements in it to keep most horror fans satisfied.

Personal highlight was the heavy metal sequence in the middle, it really made me laugh. And annoyingly enough the song was stuck in my head for a few days afterwards.

I was surprised to find it was largely a debut performance and direction from the cast and crew. I'd be interested to see what they do in the future and if they decide to make a sequel. There's enough legs in the story and enough interesting characters to suggest there might be more. I'd love to know more about Mickey.

This movie is sort of like a 90 minute rogue comedy skit with a group of fair-to-middling comedians. I did laugh at a few scenes and I thought Amy was well-played. I thought as a whole the film relied far too much on worn stereotypes; for example, the "after party" was just stupid with balloons, little kids party hats, cookies and chips, and champagne. They could have made it much funnier by taking it to an extreme of making it like a child's birthday party gone horribly wrong but it just comes across as a weak throng of basics toasting their college friends' third wedding anniversary. The end does get quite dark and the amorality of the attitude towards murder is creepy, I will give it that much. I also thought presenting one of the main characters as a LARPing nerd in over his head and demanding all the credit as a white man for doing very little was a nice touch.

Attempting to find a new outlet in his life, a wannabe serial killer enlists a documentarian to follow him on a quest to find enough followers to lead a cult of like-minded killers through a home invasion, forcing him to question his interests in continuing his career to follow the psychopath.

There's a lot to like with this one. One of the finest efforts here is the rather strong sense of comedy injected into the setup that keeps this one going quite nicely with the darkness of the material present. The formula of the cameras following the killer around and showing the various attempts at going through with killing someone features a rather nice amount of commentary on the nature of being a serial killer since this goes for the odd turn of having the women be the more bloodthirsty while the men are the more hesitant to carry it out. This gives the first half quite a lot to enjoy about it as the goofy atmosphere established at this point carries on throughout this one here that gives everything a solid touch. There were only a few issues to be had here, with the film feeling incredibly odd with the glamorization of a serial killer. The fact that this one tends to focus so heavily on the idea of trying to gain fame for being able to commit these gruesome murders tends to really come off in the wrong formula. This comes off quite oddly in the sense of generating a strange fascination with the killers which feels counter-productive to how this is expected to play out. Still, there's plenty of fun to be had here in the final half where it turns into a bit more of an obvious slasher film with the rampage being carried out in a goofy atmosphere that's all carried along with the same type of comedy repeated throughout here.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

There is a fine line between laughing and crying. When The Screaming Starts straddles this line, gently rocking itself side to side, possibly whilst holding it's knees.

At a time when serial killer fetishism seems to be at an all time high, When The Screaming Starts pokes fun at the nature of the mastermind killer whilst making us ask questions of ourselves as the audience for why we find more interest in the murderers tale than the victims.

A deep reverence for horror is abundent throughout the film, whilst rarely falling into the outright horror genre itself.

FFO: What We Do In The Shadows, Deathgasm, Creep 2.

Very obviously written, acted, and directed by local theater types, whose desire to act and be on stage or in film surpasses anyone's entertainment needs. The characters are cliche from conception to execution. Performances are competent, but nothing special. Very weak concept and the comedy is half hearted and middling. Hits every British sitcom comedy trope like knocking down bowling pins or checking boxes one at a time. Musical score is canned and intrusive. Just not funny or original. Works best at keeping the participants busy with their just barely on the right side of competent theater group aspirations, and worst at being engaging or entertaining, much less surprising or challenging an audience. Some of the ideas are not bad, and even get close to being interesting or clever, but the concept is so silly and underwhelming it gets in the way of scenes which on their own might be lightly amusing if not presented as part of such a weak, absurd and goofy concept.