April 19, 2024
The ratings of late night television show "Night Owls" starring Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) and his sidekick Gus O'Connell (Rhys Auteri) had been lagging very badly. Even an episode that featured Jack's cancer-stricken wife Madeleine (Georgina Haig) was not enough to attract audiences. Jack really needed this latest episode to do very well during the critical Sweeps period in order for his show to survive.
For this Halloween show, Jack invited psychic Christou (Fayssal Bazzi) who claimed to be able to receive messages from the dead: a magician-turned-skeptic Carmichael (Ian Bliss), who relished the chance to debunk claims of supernatural events; and best-selling author / parapsychologist Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and her ward Lilly (Ingrid Torreli), a young girl who can channel an evil entity she called Mr. Wriggles.
This film began like a documentary to introduce the "Night Owls" TV show and how it could not keep up with the competition at its time slot (specifically Johnny Carson). This served to set up the desperation of host Jack Delroy and the depths he was willing to scrape just to keep his show on the air. The main part of this film was supposedly surviving footage of that infamous October 31, 1977 episode when Delroy dared to air a show with the devil himself.
Dastmalchian's Jack was an unscrupulous showman who would do anything for ratings. Auteri's Gus spoofed subservient talk show sidekicks. Gordon's June was a professional whose expertise was difficult to take seriously. Bazzi's Christou faked so obviously that he could not convince people when it was real. Bliss's Carmichael was arrogant and tactless, but authoritative. Torreli's Lilly was pretty, but something felt off from the first time we see her.
Writing-directing partners Cameron and Colin Cairnes built things up steadily but surely. Things escalate from Christou's sham act, to that Lilly's possession by Mr. Wriggles, onto Carmichael's wormy mass-hypnotic rebuttal, before climaxing in total head-splitting, neck-ripping and face-melting Grand Guignol mayhem. All this, plus the deplorable off-camera behavior of the production crew, make for a darkly comic and terrific horror spectacle. 8/10.
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