LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL. Australia, 2023. Starring David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Fayssal Bazzi, Ingrid Torelli, Rhys Auteri, Georgina Hague, Josh Quong Tart. Directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes. 93 minutes. Rated MA (Strong horror themes).
From the early days of television, there have been popular programs at night. The popular host who builds up a reputation over the years, a range of guests, music and song, novelties, interviews, and an eager and applauding audience. Most of us know this from our own television-watching experience, with many of us having our own favourite hosts.
Cameron and Colin Cairnes (noted for their horror-comedy, 100 Bloody Acres) have taken the Late-Night popularity and mined it to make this horror film. And they do it successfully. While the setting is the US, and the main star American, the film was made in Melbourne with an Australian cast.
They have used the found-footage genre, popular now for a quarter of a century. We are back in the 1970s. Johnny Carson reigns supreme on late night television. And this is a story of Jack Delroy, played effectively by American character actor, Dastmalchian, perfectly embodying the TV host. Australians with long memories, may be reminded of the host of the 1970s, Don Lane an American, but popular in Australia.
The film gives an interesting introduction, the ups and downs of Delroy’s career on late night, his program, Night Owl, and his not claiming the top in audience reach. We see scenes of his program, especially with his former actress-wife, who then contracts cancer and dies, leaving him bereft.
We are taken easily into this television past. However, the introduction also tells us that we are about to see a Halloween episode of 1977 that never made it to air (and we see why). To make this episode more effective, intercut with the program itself are scenes, filmed in black and white, of what goes on during the breaks, the discussions, the tensions, the plans . . . All of which makes the film rather more credible than we might have expected.
So, we are prepared then for the Halloween program itself. Jack and his ambitions to do well in the ratings, some rumblings with his assistant, Gus (Auteri), questions about the sponsors, pressures from the producer during the breaks. The guests have been prearranged with Halloween in mind, first of all a psychic, Christou (Bazzi), who performs mistakenly at first, but then with some eerie success. However, the next guest is a former magician who has turned into a major sceptic and committed to exposing frauds – with some dire results in his confrontation with Christou.
But the key sequence is with a young girl, a survivor of a satanic cult (with some footage included of their sinister meetings, and the destructive house fire), along with her doctor, a parapsychological expert, who has the capacity to hypnotise the girl and make the presence of the satanic figure perfectly real.
Not a spoiler but this all comes to vivid life, with some horror touches. Was the audience hypnotised? Or is all that happens on the program something diabolical. Did Jack in his huge ambitions for popularity make a late-night pact with the devil?
Umbrella/Maslow
Released 11 April