When The Screaming Starts (2021) Review

Documentary filmmaker Norman Graysmith (Jared Rogers) believes he’s struck gold with his latest project, a fly on the wall piece about aspiring serial killer Aidan Mendle (Ed Hartland). Invited into Aidan’s home and, indeed, his life, Norman is excited about how chronicling the ongoing construction of this murderer will make his career.

Disappointingly for Norman, matters don’t exactly get off to the best of starts but Aidan has a vision far beyond his own body count, looking to girlfriend Claire (Kaitlyn Reynell) for moral support and looking to the Manson family for inspiration as he recruits a group of like-(bloody)minded individuals – plus one guy who appears to have mistaken the whole thing for some kind of yoga retreat – to head out into the world, or at least the suburbs of London, to do his gruesome bidding…

A news report very early in the proceedings gives a teaser as to the possible extent of the carnage to come and also features the line “When it comes to murder, someone always ends up getting killed”. This foreshadows the remainder of When The Screaming Starts rather nicely, balancing out the deadpan comedy and inherent, glorious ridiculousness of its premise with effective and surprisingly nasty kill sequences.

The laughs are, by and large, of the awkward type as Aidan proves, unsurprisingly, to be staggeringly inept at claiming a victim and then clumsily attempts to make himself the head of a kill-crazy cult which has been put together via a series of cringe-inducing candidate interviews, complete with haphazardly structured questions and awkward answers.

It’s during this stretch that the undeniably foxy but also clearly terrifying Amy (Octavia Gilmore) becomes a member of the family and proves, unsurprisingly, to be not only a capable acolyte but also genuinely deranged, leading the charge in a particularly extreme crashing of a dinner party in an attempt to exorcise some of her own personal demons. Amy will also become increasingly critical of Aidan’s non-involvement at the sharp end which will threaten the stability of the wider group.

The central massacre treads a fine line between darkly comic and outright horrible, effective as an utterly barmy set-piece but also leaving the viewer with that queasy feeling that there are several folks having just been slaughtered. It helps that there’s a hint that the targets may not be the most virtuous of folks but that conflicted feeling does remind you there are lives at stake here even through this farcical filter.

The mock documentary technique is a perfect fit for this tale, and if you’re watching through your fingers it’s more than likely because of the often uncomfortable style of humour beloved of such faux reality shows as The Office. The approach also provides the perfect answer for that niggling question “Why would the camera be running at this point?”. It’s running because Norman has spotted where this is all going and, it turns out, has an even more ruthless streak than most of the fledgling psychos he’s filming.

Director Conor Boru and Hartland’s script captures the everyday banality of life, even the life of a potentially celebrated maniac. There are amusing references to the typical profiles of serial killers, an example being a Guess Who? game between Aidan and Claire which centres around famous murderers and the points made about the media’s predilection for focusing on killers over victims are handled with a reasonable amount of care.

In the end, matters become a lot messier than either the crime scene the Mendle family have left behind or the sparsely catered, boozy party thrown in the aftermath as the fragile alliance between the protagonists fractures and the real villain of the piece is thrown into sharp focus as the comedy turns ever darker and Aidan is confronted with the horrific consequences of his misguided attempt at infamy.

With fun character backstories (the aside concerning the “artisan” fish stall was a particular favourite of mine), a healthy disregard for the frankly ridiculous practice of dangerous crackpots being deified and an amusing “where are they now?” catch-up during the credits, When The Screaming Starts may not add much that’s new to the subgenre but it’s good for a consistent stream of grisly chuckles and is sharper and ultimately more cynical than you might expect.

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