Late Night With The Devil review: Aussie horror flick made by former Phua Chu Kang, Under One Roof director is devilishly good
Late Night With The Devil (M18)
Starring David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Ingrid Torelli
Directed by Colin Cairnes & Cameron Cairnes
Imagine this.
A teenage girl possessed by the devil unleashes unholy hell in a late-night TV talk show in the US. She levitates and shoots out electrical bolts. One guy is fried crispier than KFC. A woman gets strung up by her own necklace.
Now get this.
This devilishly insane horror-parody mockumentary is co-directed by an Aussie named Colin Cairnes who, according to his bio, previously directed episodes of Phua Chu Kang and Under One Roof.
No kidding.
Man, you don't know what made him and his co-writer/director/brother Cameron Cairnes — Australia's Coen brothers of cut-rate black horror humour with 100 Bloody Acres and Scare Campaign — nuttier?
Was it American TV culture, living here in Singapore or their childhood trauma as couch potatoes in Down Under?
Because this twisted combo of tube-and-terror infiltration apparently came from the bros lapping up late night talk shows in Australia styled after Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, plus 1970s horror flicks. Somehow, they concluded that live TV going right into living rooms at the witching hour is actually very sinister. FYI, I totally agree. Nothing can be more insidiously scary.
The pair call this fascinatingly cryptic bonkers pic, looking like an old time-warped, crazy-era, 1970s-nostalgia throwback – their “nightmarish ode to the talk shows and horror movies of the 70s”. You marvel at how they made this so effectively passe.
Infused with found footage, behind-the-scenes exposes, outlandish ray-zapping CGI, and terrific acting — especially from David Dastmalchian (Oppenheimer, The Suicide Squad) — it's basically Paranormal Activity meets The Exorcist via Network.and Carrie.
“Gosh, I hope you love it, please love it,” Jack Delroy (Dastmalchian) begs his audience to embrace his paranormal spectacular on Halloween night, circa 1977. Exuding external charm and internal sleaze, you'd really believe that this slick-sick dude is a bona-fide talk show host.
As host of his nightly Night Owls show, in order to curb falling ratings and outdo Carson himself, Delroy stages a bizarre one-night supernatural wower. It features a spirit-sensing psychic; a hardcore paranormal skeptic, Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss); and a parapsychologist, June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon), with her star attraction, possessed-gal Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), in tow on full freakshow display.
The cautious parapsychologist warns about summoning the entity lurking in the chirpy-creepy-deadly girl. The cocky skeptic insists it's all a big hypnotic hoax. The TV host wants to conjure up and sensationally chat with the so-called devil because it's what the audience demands in this “whole darn crazy business”.
Onstage and offstage, scene by scene, we see this deal unfold into a really bad idea. Although we may miss a crucial component whisked by too quickly in something about the secretly haunted Delroy being a member of some weird male-only worshippers' cult that's linked to his deeply missed wife's death from cancer. The flashbacks are confusing. Just know that someone's paying a huge price for a fast ticket to soul-selling fame here.
Okay, to fully dig this ably fluid fright-night flick, it helps to know a bit about US talk shows, the ratings war, exorcism movies and the propensity of Americans to be suckers for anything from conmen to demons.
But if you don't give a damn about damnation, it's still can't-look-away morbid fun watching this spectacle the way people gawk at car accidents while driving past.
Now, one burning question needs to be summoned like a naughty devil.
Can these Aussie bros turn Phua Chu Kang into a really kicking horror flick too? (3.5/5 stars)
