By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon and Ian Bliss
Written and directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes
Cinetic Media
It seems to be just a coincidence that only a day after screening a documentary about one kind of ’70s TV horror–A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE, a very entertaining chronicle of the infamous STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL–the Fantasia International Film Festival hosted the Canadian premiere of a mock-doc about another. LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL, making its Canadian premiere at the fest, purports to present a complete 1977 talk show that went extremely wrong, along with behind-the-scenes video of what happened during the commercial breaks. The illusion is completely authentic, and raucously entertaining.
Australian writer/directors Colin and Cameron Cairnes, nailing all the American-pop-culture details in their third feature, open with a perfectly pitched and edited summary of the career of Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian), host of NIGHT OWLS. Consistently struggling to emerge from the shadow of chat-show king Johnny Carson, Jack also suffered a severe personal tragedy–and, it is briefly revealed, was part of a secret society holding odd rituals in the California Redwoods. This backstory will come into play on the fateful night of Halloween ’77, when Jack hosts a special paranormally themed episode in an attempt to boost ratings during “sweeps week.”
The guests are an assortment of the usual suspects: Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), a mentalist whose readings have more to do with good guesswork than any actual psychic ability; Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss), a former magician now devoted to debunking alleged evidence of the occult; and Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) along with her 13-year-old patient Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), who has been under the doctor’s care since being rescued from a satanic cult, and may still have a touch of the devil in her. (Dr. Ross-Mitchell has written a best-selling book about Lilly’s ordeal, and the clear reference is the notorious Satanic Panic-inducing MICHELLE REMEMBERS–the subject of another Fantasia-screened doc, Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor’s superb SATAN WANTS YOU.)
The Cairneses and their cast get everything right in both their evocation of bygone late-night tube fare and the characterizations of the people populating this particular program. Alternating between color square-screen for the show America supposedly saw and wider-ratio black and white for the offscreen goings-on they didn’t, the writer/directors keep you believing both that this is an actual relic of TV’s past and in the increasing desperation of those putting it on. They get plenty of comedic mileage out of Christou’s transparently phony act and Carmichael’s haughty skepticism, well-played by Bazzi and Bliss. Then Dr. Ross-Mitchell and Lilly take the NIGHT OWL stage, and while Gordon convinces us of the doc’s concern for the girl even as she’s willing to exploit Lilly’s trauma in multiple media, the terrific Torelli brings shivery intimations of genuine supernatural intrusions to come with simple bits of body language and meaningfully timed smiles.
At the center is Dastmalchian, who seems to have supporting roles in every other movie released these days and delivers an excellent star turn here. Turning on considerable charm before NIGHT OWL’s cameras, Jack determinedly pursues ratings success when the spotlight’s off, yet Dastmalchian keeps us sympathizing with him, especially as the show spirals way out of his control. Considering the movie’s title, it’s not giving too much away to say that “Mr. Wriggles,” as Lilly refers to the demon within her, is bound to be a surprise guest on the program–as encouraged, at least at the beginning, by Jack over the objections of Dr. Ross-Mitchell.
While the symptoms of Lilly’s possession are familiar, the Cairneses take the curse off that by staging them in a particular milieu where they’re just what the other characters are expecting, and in a few cases hoping, to see. There are enough dialogue references to THE EXORCIST to establish its importance in the zeitgeist of the time without overstating the point, and as this LATE NIGHT goes on, the filmmakers take their visual horrors in fresh and powerful directions. They also have satirical points to make about the quest for fame and Nielsen glory, delivering them swiftly and pointedly amidst the movie’s brisk pace (the Cairnses edited as well) and, in the second half, paying off early bits of exposition in chilling ways.
From Otello Stolfo’s production design to the interstitial graphics, LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL genuinely feels like something you might have stumbled upon while flipping channels five decades ago, only a lot scarier and laced with potent black humor. And as the reaction of the Fantasia crowd emphasized, this is one show that benefits from being seen in a theater with a large audience, and that will hopefully achieve the distribution to make that possible.
