A malign presence lurks within the nook, insidiously leaking poison into our minds; it’s ubiquitous and addictive. Small marvel that style film-makers have lengthy toyed with the concept that tv is inherently evil.
Late Evening With the Satan, a gleefully wigged-out found-footage horror by Australian brothers Cameron and Colin Cairnes, joins a rising listing of movies tapping into the darkish facet of the small display screen. It’s a listing that features Hideo Nakata’s Ringu, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist and the buzzy forthcoming title from Jane Schoenbrun, I Noticed the TV Glow. Not like a lot of the different examples nonetheless, Late Evening… focuses not on the passive consumption of tv, however on its creation. The movie hints at a Faustian pact that trades dignity, honesty, morality and even human lives to claw a share of the rankings figures. Which, when you concentrate on it, is just not so very far-fetched.
Sensible, cynical and at occasions devilishly humorous, the movie delivers a crackle of disruptive static to the demonic possession style. It takes the type of a long-lost grasp tape and backstage footage from an ill-fated 1977 Halloween particular of Evening Owls, a struggling syndicated night talkshow fronted by host Jack Delroy (a note-perfect David Dastmalchian, all slippery neediness and insincerity). Dealing with cancellation, Jack and his producer have pulled out all of the stops: the fright-night particular encompasses a psychic, a cynic and, because the star attraction, a parapsychologist and a demonically possessed 13-year-old woman (an impressively disquieting Ingrid Torelli). The scene is about for a reside try to commune with the satan. However first, a message from the sponsor…
