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Late Night with the Devil: Limited Edition
[Blu-ray 4K]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - Second Sight Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (21st October 2024). |
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The Film
 While enormously popular with late night audiences, former Chicago radio announcer turned "Night Owl" variety show host Jack Delroy (Oppenheimer's David Dastmalchian) has never been able to top Johnny Carson in the Nielsen ratings, even with the brief spike on the night Jack's stage actress wife Madeleine Piper (Once Upon a Time's Georgina Haig) made a heartbreaking appearance to discuss her terminal lung cancer diagnosis. Following her death a week later, Jack disappeared for a month, returning with renewed determination to get to the top but sinking lower, unable to hide his bitterness or his contempt for some of his guests. With his five year contract nearing its end, Jack's only hope to keep the show afloat is 1977 Sweeps' Week starting on Halloween night with Jack's manager Leo Fiske (Around the Block's Josh Quong Tart) courting controversy and Jack courting the occult and producing (intentionally or not) "live TV event that shocked a nation… Late Night with the Devil. Things get off to an awkward start as medium Christou ('s Fayssal Bazzi) quite obviously cold reads the audience, but he manages to make a grieving mother and daughter believe they have attained closure with a relative who committed suicide, and the audience is hardly swayed when James Randi-esque professional paranormal debunker Carmichael Haig (Stealth's Ian Bliss) attempts to expose Christou's methods… especially when Christou goes into convulsions and claims there is a dangerous presence in the studio before hemorrhaging blood all over the stage. During the commercial break, Haig is just as certain that Jack engineered the effect as Jack is that Leo was behind it. The centerpiece of the evening is revealed to be Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), the teenage sole survivor of the cult of Abraxas whose charismatic founder Szabdor d'Abo (Prison Break's Steve Mouzakis) ordered his followers to set themselves and their compound alight during a standoff with federal agents over claims of human sacrifices to the demon. Parapsychologist Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Saw V's Laura Gordon), who has been treating Lilly for five years and made her the subject of her bestselling book "Conversations with the Devil", is uncertain whether Lilly's inexplicable survival was luck or part of d'Abo's master plan. After listening to a tape recording of one of Lilly's sessions during which she was possessed by a demon, Haig not only dismisses it but accuses June of exploiting a mentally-ill girl. Against June's better judgment – along with the reservations of the Jack's more credulous on-camera sidekick Gus McConnell (Rhys Auteri) – Jack pushes her to use Lilly to summon the demon for indisputable proof of the supernatural… and it goes just about as well as you would expect. Unfolding in garishly-colored 1.33:1-framed footage of the broadcast master tape, 1.66:1-framed monochrome behind the scenes split-screen coverage, and subjective, hallucinatory 2.40:1 sequences, Late Night with the Devil from Australian filmmaking siblings Cameron and Colin Cairnes (100 Bloody Acres) is a flawed horror film that is nevertheless fascinating in the way it weaves together tropes of horror movies from the period like The Exorcist – Lilly's "Mr. Whiggles" seems as much a Captain Howdy as a "Pipes" from Ghostwatch – and Rosemary's Baby, aspects of the "Satanic Panic" hysteria of the era, mass hypnosis, and the seventies fascination with the occult and the paranormal with stand-ins for the likes of James Randi, Uri Geller, and Anton LaVey while Jack Delroy is as believable a colleague as an amalgamation of the seventies television talk show hosts (less Johnny Carson than a less-boring Dick Cavett). The end result, particularly the final overly-digital and almost laughable display of telekinetic chaos gives the film the feel of an extended short from the V/H/S anthology franchise – particularly ones that similarly try to evoke the analogue aesthetics of the period in the form of television shows or news broadcasts. The filmmakers also seem at a loss to end the film effectively, going beyond the chaotic climax of the show to an extended hallucinatory sequence that redundantly "clarifies" everything more skillfully implied throughout the show as if they were afraid viewers might not gasp the Faustian elements (making the film more akin to the even more unsubtle Starry Eyes than Rosemary's Baby told from Guy's point-of-view). Dastmalchian is good almost in spite of what he has to work with, conveying his character's inner conflict non-verbally, most compelling as he starts to believe that his late wife is indeed contacting him from the beyond through Lilly and perhaps realizing too late that the occult pomp and circumstance of the secret gentlemen's club was not just kinky diversion. The behind the scenes segments and the hallucinatory ending actually detract from the drama – as much as the opening establishing of the time period via historical events and discussion of the zeitgeist establishing a documentary framework soon abandoned (made even less not more convincing because it is narrated by Michael Ironside who in addition to be a character actor is also very well known as a narrator of Hollywood film trailers) – and, indeed, there have been fan edits of the film (including ones that have graced a few international Blu-ray editions) that have taken those bits out and added vintage commercials to the scenes from the broadcast; indeed, the film as just the tape of the broadcast with fake vintage commercials might have been a better choice. In spite of its flaws, however, Late Night with the Devil is one of the better "hyped-up 'elevated horror' that nevertheless disappoints" of this past Halloween season. 
Video
Second Sight's 2160p24 HEVC multi-aspect ratio Dolby Vision/HDR10-compatible 4K UltraHD and 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC Blu-ray – also available in separate separate single-disc 4K UltraHD and Blu-ray editions – nicely conveys the various textures of high definition Sony Venice camera Sony Venice-originated and digitally-treated video, with some filmic monochrome behind the scenes segments, video of the show that is softer yet sharper than anything ever captured on one inch analog tape, and the ending widescreen scenes that forgo the cinematic for the hyperreal. Since it is working from the same master as every other territory's release – Germany being the only other one so far to put out a 4K edition – and Second Sight's encoding has always been exemplary as of late, there is nothing to complain about in terms of A/V quality. 
Audio
The English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track strikes a balance between the sonic needs of the seventies talk show (front- and center-oriented) and the requirements of modern horror (surrounds that are active and not merely ambient). Once the possessions start and the telekinesis erupts, however, the vintage sound is out the door with the sounds of lasers and electric crackling much more threatening than their CGI visualizations. Optional English HoH subtitles are provided. 
Extras
For the most part, Second Sight has not carried over extras from other editions and instead created a host of new ones – if there are any die hard fans, we suspect they may need to purchase multiple editions for a comprehensive package – starting here with an audio commentary by film historians Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson. Although it gets off to a breezy start, this is a dense and stimulating track. Both Australians, they discuss the ways in which this American-set, Australian-lensed production manages to have its cake and eat it too in terms of the country's long filmic history of conveying Australian identity and critically-shunning the horror genre which produced much of the country's exported productions during the seventies and early eighties industry boom. They also discuss the ways in which the Satanic Panic occurred differently in America and Australia, horror films as the vehicle for much of these claims by people who experienced source amnesia, and how many recognizably Australian cultural elements there are in the film which nevertheless plays well at being American given its international reception including the Johnny Carson also-ran host having more in common with Don Lane who had a notorious on-air fight with James Randi. This leads to discussion of the "wild west" of seventies late night live television and a number of incidents more familiar to American audiences. In the absence of a filmmaker audio commentary, Heller-Nicholas and Nelson provide some insights including their intention not to do the film as a media satire yet taking inspiration from non-genre works like Network and The King of Comedy – along with recurring elements from their earlier films and the influence of producer Joe lAnderson, director of the iconic modern Australian pseudo-documentary horror film Lake Mungo – and their initial intentions to set the film in Australia and wanting to actually shoot in on seventies television cameras.  In "Bringing Their 'A' Game" (39:17), directors Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes discuss how the idea of a horror film set in a television studio came to them after their feature debut and developed in fits over ten years with some input from Lake Mungo's Anderson who they met through cinematographer John Brawley who shot both of their films. Although it was ultimately the interest of American indie horror "kingmaker" producer Roy Lee (It) that got the film into production, it had already been optioned a few years before by the Australian half of the production. They discuss the casting – particularly Dastmalchian who in addition to being a character actor in mainstream films is also a graphic novel artist and an expert on regional TV horror hosts, and Auteri who was part of a Melbourne improv group but had no online presence otherwise – as well as the achievements of the cinematographer who had experience with the three camera setup to which they wanted to restrict coverage of the show footage, production designer, and costume designer on achieving the film's period look on a budget (along with their colorist). "Mind if I Smoke?" (11:45) is an interview with actor Bliss who had been hired by a talent to do reads with actors on auditions and whose involvement with the film originally extended from the auditions to the table read only to then be contacted a day later by his agent with an offer to play Carmichael Haig (the original actor had to leave the film due to personal issues). He recalls knowing he was on the same page with the directors when he mentioned the Don Lane/James Randi incident but not getting to discuss his character's relationship with Dastmalchian's until they were in the make-up chair but realized they were also on the same wavelength. "We're Gonna Make a Horror Movie" (11:51) is an interview with Torelli who had been acting since she was nine and being attracted to "quirky" characters. She was excited by the script but deliberately avoided watching horror films in preparation for the film to not be influenced by them. In "Extremely Lucky" (14:46), actor Auteri reveals that he initially thought the email about the film was spam until a friend looked into it for him. He also recalls that there was little room in the tightly-written script for improvisation, and having only one chance to do shots involving make-up effects. In "Cult Hits: Zoë Rose Smith on Late Night with the Devil" (24:52), Smith discusses the pop culture image of cults – particularly during the Satanic Panic – and how it has evolved in the age of social media to target the same kind of psychologically-vulnerable people. In discussing the film, Smith also makes the case that Jack Delroy is one such person more so than Lilly and that even his sweeps ratings ploy and the resulting disaster are part of it rather than inadvertently exposing it and his part. Smith concludes the piece with a survey of ten "cult" films ranging from the obvious like Rosemary's Baby, The Wicker Man, Midsommar, and The Sacrament to films like Faults and The Conspiracy. "Behind the Scenes with the Devil" (21:36) and "Making of 'The Music of Night Owls'" (8:06) consist entirely of behind the scenes footage with incidental talking but no intercut interviews or casual commentary. Also exclusive to this release is South by Southwest 2023 Q&A with actor David Dastmalchian & directors Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes (8:12). 
Packaging
The limited edition houses the region free 4K UltraHD disc and region B Blu-ray in a rigid slipcase with new artwork by Haley Turnbull including a 120-page book with behind the scenes images, storyboards and new essays by Kat Hughes, James Rose, Rebecca Sayce, Graham Skipper, Julieann Stipidis and Emma Westwood, as well as six collectors' art cards.
Overall
In spite of its flaws, however, Late Night with the Devil is one of the better "hyped-up 'elevated horror' that nevertheless disappoints" of this past Halloween season.
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