A malign presence lurks in the corner, insidiously leaking poison into our minds; it’s ubiquitous and addictive. Small wonder that genre film-makers have long toyed with the idea that television is inherently evil.
Late Night With the Devil, a gleefully wigged-out found-footage horror by Australian brothers Cameron and Colin Cairnes, joins a growing list of films tapping into the dark side of the small screen. It’s a list that includes Hideo Nakata’s Ringu, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist and the buzzy forthcoming title from Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow. Unlike most of the other examples however, Late Night… focuses not on the passive consumption of television, but on its creation. The film hints at a Faustian pact that trades dignity, honesty, morality and even human lives to claw a share of the ratings figures. Which, when you think about it, is not so very far-fetched.
Smart, cynical and at times devilishly funny, the film delivers a crackle of disruptive static to the demonic possession genre. It takes the form of a long-lost master tape and backstage footage from an ill-fated 1977 Halloween special of Night Owls, a struggling syndicated evening talkshow fronted by host Jack Delroy (a note-perfect David Dastmalchian, all slippery neediness and insincerity). Facing cancellation, Jack and his producer have pulled out all the stops: the fright-night special features a psychic, a cynic and, as the star attraction, a parapsychologist and a demonically possessed 13-year-old girl (an impressively disquieting Ingrid Torelli). The scene is set for a live attempt to commune with the devil. But first, a message from the sponsor…
