‘Late Night time With The Satan’_ Fantasia Evaluate

Dir/scr: Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes. Aus/UAE. 2023. 92mins

With each discovered footage and possession narratives having been considerably executed to demise, it’s spectacular that Australian filmmakers Cameron and Colin Cairnes (100 Bloody Acres, Scare Marketing campaign) have managed to mix them in a approach that’s each ingenious and entertaining. That’s largely as a result of they’ve couched their horror narrative throughout the parameters of a Seventies US discuss present, with David Dastmalchian giving a superb efficiency as a late night time host who unwittingly unleashes hell on a reside Halloween broadcast. Comparisons with the BBC’s 1992 pseudo-documentary Ghostwatch are inevitable, however Late Night time With The Satan is distinctive sufficient to carve out its personal area of interest.

The simple familiarity of this set-up solely provides to the sense of unease when issues go awry

Displaying at Fantasia after premiering at SXSW, that is the second title of a multi-picture deal between US style label Spooky Photos and Picture Nation Abu Dhabi; the primary, Chloe Okuno’s Watcher, premiered at Sundance 2022 and had a UK/US theatrical launch earlier than touchdown on Shudder. Late Night time With The Satan — which is about within the USA however shot in Melbourne —might nicely observe the identical trajectory, notably if buoyed by sturdy phrase of mouth. It also needs to put the Cairnes brothers firmly on the mainstream radar.

Dastmalchian (who can at present be seen in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer) is given a uncommon however welcome main position as Jack Delroy, the charismatic host of Seventies US late night time talkshow ‘Night time Owls’. A gap sequence narrated by Michael Ironside establishes the backstory; by 1977, Delroy — who had by no means been in a position to match the success of (real-life) rival Johnny Carson — was a star on the wane, devastated each by declining rankings and the demise of his beloved spouse from most cancers a yr beforehand. Decided to show his fortunes round, Delroy deliberate a spooky Halloween particular; the self-esteem is that we’re about to see the never-before-aired tape of that present, together with lately found behind-the-scenes footage.

A TV studio, with its myriad cameras and microphones, is the perfect discovered footage location, as a number of angles and audio may be utilised with out straying too removed from the realms of credulity. The Cairnes brothers deploy these with type, establishing a distinction in tone between the all-smiles nature of the on-screen materials and the tense ambiance of backstage conversations. From these we perceive Delroy is completely centered on chasing the rankings — and his personal fame — and so his judgement is already compromised earlier than the night time will get underway.

The primary visitor is psychic Christou (Fayssal Bazzi) who has an excessive bodily response after seeming to commune with a studio spirit, regardless of the cynicism of fellow visitor Carmichael The Conjurer (a delightfully smug Ian Bliss) — a former magician turned skeptic clearly based mostly on the real-life James Randi. Then, parapsychologist June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) arrives along with her 13-year-old affected person Lily (Ingrid Torelli, who bears a seemingly deliberate resemblance to The Exorcist’s Regan). Lily’s experiences with a Devil-worshiping cult have apparently resulted in her being possessed by a demon she calls Mr Wiggles (a neat nod to The Exorcist’s Captain Howdy); when she agrees to show it reside on air, issues actually start to unravel

From the off, manufacturing designer Otello Stole and costume designer Stephanie Hook seize the inoffensive beige Seventies TV aesthetic. Every part is on level, from the brown-and-orange-toned set to the home band, led by sidekick Gus McConnell (Rhys Auteri), whose jaunty riffs (composed by Roscoe James Irwin) step by step mix with Glenn Richard’s ominous rating as strains between actuality and entrainment blur. The simple familiarity of this set-up solely provides to the sense of unease when issues go awry — and, after they do, sensible make-up and results actually come into their very own. Sequences during which Gus is put beneath hypnosis and Lily exhibits her true colors are squeamishly efficient, and will go down a storm with a style crowd.

But it surely’s Dalmachian’s efficiency that anchors the movie. He performs Delroy as a reasonably unremarkable man who struggles to separate his on-screen persona from his persona, and can do something to remain related. His nuanced, more and more determined flip helps the movie strike a fragile steadiness between scary film, social satire and cautionary story.