Fantastic Fest Review: After the Screaming Stops

Remember Bros.? If you’re American, or under the age of 30, there’s really no reason you should. But for a hot minute in the late Eighties, twin brothers Matt and Luke Goss were two of the biggest pop stars in the world. And then it all fell apart.

Music documentary After the Screaming Stops takes its title from a question posed to the brothers by iconic British TV host Terry Wogan, when he put them on the spot about their future after the eventual teen adulation died down. In Luke’s case, he became an actor and a Guillermo del Toro regular: Matt conquered Las Vegas, and is fast headed towards a decade of high-profile casino residencies.

But what was lost in the fracas was their sibling relationship, and the film tracks their seemingly insane plan to rebuild that by playing a one-night Bros. reunion show at London’s massive O2 Arena. Filmmakers Joe Pearlman and David Soutar track the pair – singer Matt, flamboyant but serious, an oddball philosopher in some ways; drummer Luke, equally serious, but still carrying some even more serious baggage about being in Matt’s shadow – as they struggle with each other and their pop legacy.

It’s easy to laugh at the pair, who sometimes can seem a little ridiculous (Matt’s long winded allegories and metaphors seem especially ripe for lampooning). But what’s really the heart of the matter is a story of two working class London boys who were lofted to Beatlemania levels of acclaim and screaming fandom, and then became a musical punching bag – a thirty year standing joke who were run out of the UK by aggressively nasty paparazzi and still bear all the scars of being too famous, too soon (one scene about a family funeral will leave you rightly furious).

The music will probably leave the average Fantastic Fest attendee cold (chirpy post-Wham! teenybop earworms), but it’s the sibling drama that’s will really stick with you.After the Screaming Stops is a poignant reminder that no matter how successful you are, or how much distance you put between yourself and trauma, reinvention can only go so far: And when the brothers survive the month long rehearsals that are the meat of the movie, and have their redemptive moment in front of a crowd, it’s clear that it was always really about that hug between them.

After the Screaming Stops

This article appears in September 21 • 2018.