Directed by Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes. Starring David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Fayssal Bazzi, Ingrid Torelli, Rhys Auteri, Georgina Haig and Josh Quong Tart
Jack Delroy (Dastmalchian) is a late-night talk show host whose show, Night Owls, competes with Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show for ratings. He has a great life but then his wife Madeline (Haig) dies of cancer. Delroy take a break but when he returns but the show begins to lose viewers. In desperation he plans a very special Halloween Special for October 31st 1977. His guests include a psychic Christou (Bazzi) and a former magician turned debunker Carmichael (Bliss) but the stars of the show are planned to be Parapsychologist June (Gordon) and her teenage patient Lilly (Torelli) who June claims is possessed by a demon Lilly calls Mr Wriggles. When Delroy convinces June to conjure Mr Wriggles the stage is set for a Halloween no one will forget!
Some movies are just fun, some movies just capture your eye from start to finish. Late Night with the Devil IS one of those movies. While not perfect it’s an engaging and original found footage film (though as with many found footage films it can’t help but move outside of its scope on occasional, thankfully such detours are brief and don’t detract from the whole). And yes there is more than a hint of BBC’s Ghostwatch here, but that’s no bad thing.
The film looks incredible, the 1970s’ talk show aesthetic seems, to me at least, spot on, and the characters are so engrossing that this is one of those films I think I’d love, even if it didn’t head into the supernatural. I’d kinda like to watch some regular episodes of Night Owls.
At the heart of it all is Dastmalchian who plays Delroy to perfection. He’s ever so slightly sleezy, but never so much that you don’t like him, his love for his deceased wife seems genuine and sure, he’s desperate for ratings but what talk show host isn’t? Seriously without Dastmalchian this film wouldn’t be as good, and one hopes this is finally the breakthrough part for an actor who’s been around a while and always delivered interesting performances.
Fayssal Bazzi is good as ‘is he/isn’t he fake’ medium Christou, again nailing that 70s’ lounge lizard look, as does Ian Bliss as Carmichael who, given he’s a sceptic who wants to debunk the supernatural, actually doesn’t come across as remotely likeable, it seems less about the truth than it does about forging a new career. Laura Gordon is solid in perhaps the least interesting role, but someone has to play the straight man, and Ingrid Torelli switches between sweet and creepy eerily well. Special mention to Rhys Auteri as Jack’s comedy sidekick who really does feel like he’s stepped off the set of one of these shows.
Is it perfect? No. It isn’t as scary as I’d been led to believe it was, which is fine and I suspect my next viewing I’ll enjoy it even more knowing what I’m signing up for, and it doesn’t quite stick the landing, but frankly everything up to the final moments is so wonderful that this hardly matters.
A film I’ll be watching again, in fact I’m already planning on buying the Blu-Ray.
werewolves on the moon 