Worth: $17.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Fayssal Bazzi, Ingrid Torelli, Josh Quong Tart
Intro:
... a cleverly conceived and deftly directed fright flick with top-notch performances and a cracking pace.
All things considered, live television has to be one of the most high-stress environments imaginable. Although it’s mostly fallen out of favour these days (with a few notable exceptions like Saturday Night Live), it used to be all the rage back in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Hot lights, a live audience, a million moving parts and a high chance something would go wrong; what a wild ride it must have been. It’s also a great setting for a horror movie, a hypothesis deftly proven by Late Night with the Devil, the latest film from Aussie directors, Colin and Cameron Cairnes.
Late Night with the Devil follows the host of talk show Night Owls, Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian), a wannabe Johnny Carson whose ratings are currently in freefall. To get back in the race, Jack has a bonanza Halloween episode planned. The supernatural themed show features psychic Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), sceptic Carmichael (Ian Bliss), parapsychologist Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and her teenage patient Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), the sole survivor of a Satanic cult’s mass suicide. Needless to say, things don’t go to plan and Jack’s biggest show may also be his grand finale.
The best thing about Late Night is the way it manages to take two well-worn horror tropes and make them feel fresh again. In this case, it’s possession stories and found footage films.
The entire movie is presented as the rediscovered master tape that was first aired back in 1977, with some additional behind-the-scenes footage. It’s a neat and really effective conceit (until it gets a little abused in the back end, but more on that later) and grounds the action with a palpable sense of time and place.
Helping things immensely is Dastmalchian’s performance, making us feel Jack’s clammy desperation to hold onto the small foothold that he has left in the entertainment industry. Ian Bliss is also great as the snarky sceptic, as is Rhys Auteri who plays the gormless sidekick, Gus, with great panache. However, it’s Ingrid Torelli as Lilly who you’ll probably remember the most vividly, as she lights up the screen and then darkens it again once things start getting weird.
And things get very weird indeed, with a third act that pivots from slow-burning tension to full-on prosthetic-filled ‘80s schlock. Don’t get us wrong, it’s well-executed and intense, but changes the vibe from, say, gripping Spanish found footage film [REC], to Tobe Hooper’s bull-goose-loony ‘80s space vampire flick, Lifeforce. The only real shortcoming with this concluding section is that the previously established rules of what can or cannot be shown, an essential part of any found footage movie, are somewhat disregarded to justify the spectacle. This will probably only bother a certain type of fussy horror wanker (gestures to self), but it’s worth noting, nonetheless.
Ultimately, Late Night with the Devil is a cleverly conceived and deftly directed fright flick with top-notch performances and a cracking pace. It might stumble a couple of times in terms of found footage consistency, but is nonetheless a striking and original horror film, joining recent quality Aussie-made genre gear like You’ll Never Find Me and Talk to Me. Well worth watching in a crowded cinema, Late Night with the Devil is a Satanic blast best enjoyed with a live audience full of fellow cackling weirdos.
