When a Sweeps Week stunt goes horribly wrong.
As the 1960's gave way to the turbulent 1970's, television more than ever brought the horrors of the world directly into our living rooms, and that dire deluge was pointedly offset by fare such as late-night talk shows, with THE TONIGHT SHOW with Johnny Carson becoming a broadcast monolith. In1971, the UBC network launches NIGHT OWLS, hosted by former radio personality Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian), who seeks to challenge Carson's late-night supremacy. Welcomed to the network with a five-year contract, Jack builds an audience, but he and his show remain in the shadow of his rival.
Jack is happily married to stage actress Madeleine Piper (Georgina Haig), his deeply-loved muse, and their marriage is hailed as one of the most solid in the entertainment biz, but his other support is the Grove, a men-only club sequestered deep in the redwoods of California. Established in the 1800's and comprised of politicians, entertainers, and captains of industry, the Grove presents itself to the outside world as a harmless diversion for the rich and powerful, complete with rituals and accompanying owl-based garb, but it somehow has the power to make or break careers.
By the end of Jack's fourth year with the network, the ratings still can't touch Carson's and though repeatedly nominated for prestigious awards, Jack remains an also-ran. Then, in 1976, Madeleine is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. When Madeleine dies, a distraught Jack vanishes to parts unknown for a month, but Jack soon returns and, in a bid to bolster ever-flagging ratings, books controversial and exploitative guests. As ratings steadily plummet, a desperate Jack plans a live Sweeps Week Halloween installment that will hopefully turn things around. With the cultural impact of THE EXORCIST (1973) and the perception that the world had entered a satanic era very much in the zeitgeist, the night's featured guests include a spiritualist (Fayssal Bazzi) who claims to hear the voices of the dead, a former magician (Ian Bliss) who debunks metaphysical frauds, and a parapsychologist (Laura Gordon) whose star patient and subject of a best-selling case study, an eerie 13-year-old girl (Ingrid Torelli), is the sole survivor of a satanic cult's mass suicide and who purportedly is host to the demon Abraxas. What results is a live event that shocked the nation and that is presented to us as the found master tape of that episode, plus behind the scenes footage, and none of it goes well for any and all involved.
I wanted to close this year's round of 31 DAYS OF HORROR with something truly good and of recent vintage, and LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL more than meets that criteria. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and preemptively hail it as a modern classic, one of the finest horror offerings of the 21st Century thus far.
The film perfectly captures the smarmy and trite banality of the 1970's late-night talk show genre, a look and feel that will be instantly recognizable to those of us who experienced the decades-long reign of THE TONIGHT SHOW, and the entire cast perform their roles with utterly believable verisimilitude while the narrative examines the price of fame and power. Jack Delroy is a study in ruthless show biz narcissism and lust for power, no matter who is exploited or hurt, and when the proceedings veer deep into the dark side, things become quite unnerving and downright Lovecraftian. To say more would ruin the fun, so I'll just sign off by giving LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL very high marks indeed. It's a must-see for all horror devotees, especially those who feel that the whole "devil junk" teat was milked dry after fifty years of attempts at topping THE EXORCIST. Proof positive that quality, intelligent, genuinely creepy and scary horror still exists.
And that concludes another round of 31 DAYS OF HORROR, my own humble annual veneration of the frisson that the cinema of the macabre bestows upon our hearts and minds. Thank you for reading my blather, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed reliving these flicks. See you back here next year for more!
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