Australian filmmaker siblings Colin and Cameron Cairnes joined The Hollywood Reporter in an interview discussing their recent film Late Night With the Devil. Throughout the interview, they talked about their influences, their love for horror as a genre, and their need for authenticity.
The film follows late-night TV show host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian), who decides to bring on a guest to his show who claims to be in communion with the devil. However, things slowly fall apart in this Halloween special as supernatural forces slowly make themselves known.
When the brothers were growing up, they were enmeshed in American pop culture despite living in Australia. They were exposed to different movies and TV shows, especially talk show hosts. They even had their own in Australia called Don Lane, who was as obsessed with the supernatural as Dastmalchian’s character in their film. According to Colin, the idea of a late-night show was exotic to them. “Just the idea of staying up late as a kid and watching those sorts of shows always felt a bit taboo, a bit dangerous,” he said. Because of this, the brothers combined this interest with horror, their other late-night obsession, to capture the proper feeling in their film.
When asked about their influences from 70’s horror films, the Cairnes brothers discussed not only movies like The Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby but also Network and The King of Comedy. They explained that they wanted to recapture the same kind of grittiness evident in these films and felt that the same paranoia felt by America in that era is repeating in today’s events, “with the crisis in the Middle East, the distrust in politicians.” “That whole era of paranoia, of who can you trust,” Colin reflected, “which was certainly there to a degree in the 1970s and I think is with us in a big way now.”
Because of this, they worked to ensure that the film portrayed the era accurately in their monologues, jokes, and production design. They originally wanted to use actual tube cameras to capture this authenticity, but none were available in working condition. Even though they had to use digital cameras, their DP Matt Temple helped them find all the lighting and gear needed to recapture the era.
Late Night With the Devil was picked up by IFC Films and Shudder on October 2023 and will be released on the latter’s streaming platform.
Leave a Comment