Scream All Night by Derek Milman | Book Review

Title: Scream All Night
Author: Derek Milman
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Published Date:  July 24th, 2018
Genre: Mystery, Contemporary, YA
Page Count:400
Format: Kindle

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Goodreads Summary: 
Dario Heyward knows one thing: He’s never going back to Moldavia Studios, the iconic castle that served as the set, studio, and home to the cast and crew of dozens of cult classic B-horror movies. It’s been three years since Dario’s even seen the place, after getting legally emancipated from his father, the infamous director of Moldavia’s creature features.

But then Dario’s brother invites him home to a mysterious ceremony involving his father and a tribute to his first film—The Curse of the Mummy’s Tongue. Dario swears his homecoming will be a one-time visit. A way for him to get closure on his past—and reunite with Hayley, his first love and co-star of Zombie Children of the Harvest Sun, a production fraught with real-life tragedy—and say good-bye for good. But the unthinkable happens—Dario gets sucked back into the twisted world of Moldavia and the horrors, both real and imagined, he’s left there.

With only months to rescue the sinking studio and everyone who has built their lives there, Dario must confront the demons of his past—and the uncertainties of his future. But can he escape the place that’s haunted him his whole life? 

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 My Review:

“One day you’ll look back on your time here, and all of us, and you won’t feel the pain you do now. When that moment comes, you’ll know you’ve made it through all the darkness God drew for you and come out into the light.”

Thank you to Edelweiss and the Publisher and Mind Much Media for a free e-arc

Dario is an emancipated teenager who is in his senior year of high school and has his whole life ahead of him. Or at least it seems to be that way until he gets a call that his dad is dying and they are having a funeral for him that he should be at. From that point on things start to go crazy again in Dario's life, that he thought he had left behind forever.

Drawn back into the movie world that his dad had created, he is also faced with a whole new set of responsibilities and a hard choice to make on if he stays or goes and the consequences each choice will have.

Overall I surprisingly really loved this book. Cult classic movies aren't really my type of thing, but Milman did an amazing job of just making that be something that wasn't constantly the whole focus of the book while it also being what connected the characters together. Instead, this book focuses far more, about overcoming where you came from and figuring out what you want out of life.

Dario and all the other background characters around him I loved. They were all so unique and different from one another, while almost all of them just wanted the best for Dario and would have completely understood why he did certain things no matter what his choice would have been. In fact, most of the cast and crew that were still around, were there during his childhood so they knew how difficult this all was for him, and they still wanted to protect him as much as possible while also being worried about there own futures. 

Milman did an amazing job of not only making you feel like you were living through certain things with Dario. The memories and flashbacks that he had were so vivid and real and truly made you feel like you had been there with Dario during them. I'm going to stop talking now because I don't want to give anything away, but just now that I can't wait for everyone to be able to read this one and while it is a little scary and creepy at times, it is also deliciously ridiculous at others.

“My dad was notorious for overworking actors. He’d film screams until voices were completely shot. He felt there was a real terror that would creep into a scream after a certain point. He was always after that moment, that elusive truth… “Scream all night!” my dad would say, gleefully. It became a catchphrase. He started saying it whenever he was about to film a new scene.”

I'm really excited to read Milman's next book that comes out in 2019!