Late Night With The Devil: Satan Takes The Stage In This Chilling Spookfest

“Ladies and gentlemen, please stay tuned for a live television first, as we attempt to commune with the devil. But not before a word from our sponsors.”

The medium is the message in Late Night with the Devil. Imagine tuning into a talk show that functions as a mass hypnosis. Imagine the devil being conjured on live TV and using the camera to see and be seen. Imagine if such a malign presence could be beamed right into our living rooms through the spirit box. Imagine the everyday ritual of watching TV making us wriggle in what should be our safest space. No, this isn’t an unaired episode of The Eric Andre Show, though our discomfort does mount by the same token, as an interview descends into all-out chaos. Nor is this a behind-the-scenes special about Jimmy Fallon’s cringeworthy 2016 interview with Donald Trump, though the talk show host here does something no less misguided. This is a possession romp from Australian brothers Cameron and Colin Cairnes. And it comes with a diabolical setup: the power of ratings compels desperate ‘70s talk show host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) to bring on a possessed teenaged girl during Sweeps Week; the proverbial shit hits the fan; the movie we see is presented as uncensored found footage of the episode.

Twenty-five years after The Blair Witch Project made the found-footage movie a horror staple, the Cairnes brothers use it to package a showbiz satire, one that is clever enough to entice lapsed believers of the format, if not renew their faith. The clash of belief vs scepticism is in fact written into its very conceit. With the extraordinary spectacle of possession shown as an ordinary programme on live TV, the movie toys with viewers in their hypnotic state, pitting their high suggestibility against their willing suspension of disbelief.

There is no spectacle so wicked that it can’t be televised. In Nope-speak, there is no bad miracle so elusive it can’t be captured on camera. When an opportunity for a televised possession (the first of its kind) presents itself, Jack seizes it, his instinct for spectacle aligning with his desire for the top spot in late-night ratings. Ambition, when unchecked, is itself like a possession. “Night Owls with Jack Delroy” has been losing the ratings war to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for years. What’s more, Jack has recently lost his wife to lung cancer. Grief forces him to take a short break, but it doesn’t sap his ambition. On his return, he makes a Faustian bargain, trading dignity for fleeting fame. In his eagerness to dethrone Carson, he misplaces his soul. To reach the top is not possible without making some sacrifices.

Dastmalchian has a mysterious countenance and wide-set eyes tailor-made for horror movies. Since playing a Joker stooge in The Dark Knight, he has been typecast as an oddball, often in the periphery who brings a touch of eerie. It is shocking that it has taken casting directors this long to put him front and centre of a spookfest. As a B-lister looking to make it to the A-list, a sideburn-clad Dastmalchian embodies the dark slithery side of celebrity, using his underutilised charm to shroud his inherent cult member aura.

For Jack, salvation arrives on Halloween. The special episode kicks off with a monologue about as unfunny as Jimmy Kimmel’s tends to be. In between, there is also a bit of banter with sidekick and reluctant yes-man Gus (Rhys Auteri). Our first guest of the night is psychic medium Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), who digs into his bag of parlour tricks. On cue, the live studio audience is easily wowed by his “I hear a name starting with the letter C and ending with the letter N” performance. Charlatan? Indeed. Or at least according to the next guest Carmichael (Ian Bliss), a sceptic who gave up a career as a magician for a more gainful one as a paranormal debunker. He is a man who loves to expose trickery and always with almighty condescension. If anyone can prove to him the existence of paranormal phenomena, he has even got a cheque for a hundred thousand dollars ready at hand.

But Carmichael and every rational viewer’s certainty is challenged upon the introduction of parapsychologist Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and her showstopping ward Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), the sole survivor of a Satanic suicide cult. Soon as the young girl appears on stage, there is no doubt whatsoever that something is off about her. Her repeated stares into the camera, her demonstrative smile, her insistent amicability, all point to what may be more than self-induced hysteria. Lily claims to be possessed by an entity she calls Mr. Wriggles. Not demonic possession, but “‘psychic infestation’ is the term we prefer,” insists Dr. June. Jack doesn’t care about the semantics. Nor do we. But he does care about what makes for great TV. Like say a public exhibition of “psychic infestation.” The first signs of which appear even before Lily’s arrival. Lights flicker. The screen glitches. Christou rolls back his eyes and projectile vomits. Once Dr. June conjures Mr. Wriggles, a possessed Lily goes all Regan MacNeil, writhing and levitating in her chair. Under the influence, she hints at secrets Jack has either comfortably forgotten or deliberately hidden. By the end, the devil seems to take control of the TV camera, forcing viewers to reconsider whether what they are witnessing is an individual psychosis or a shared one.

The devil is in the details and the entrails of a movie that feels like a time capsule of a pre-Internet age. The fictional talk show channels the style of standard-definition late-night TV of the ‘70s, complete with vintage title cards and brown-heavy costumes. Its staged alikeness is a warning against blindly trusting what we see on television. Each time the episode cuts to commercial, the 4:3 framing shifts to black-and-white interludes of the cast and crew behind the stage getting ready for the next segment. In revealing the seams, the movie makes the mistake of betraying its found-footage framework, same as the news documentary-style prologue which just about telegraphs its final destination. Such editorial choices negate the power the movie draws from its liminality: as a story of fiction assuming the rhetoric of fact, as an episode filmed before a live audience being rewatched by an audience after the fact, as an unaired talk show whose haunting legacy lies in its unairing.