Brothers/Filmmakers Colin & Cameron Caires talk to The Inside Reel about inspiration, design and characterization in regards to their new horror film: "Late Night With The Devil" from Shudder and IFC Films.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:11 Ladies and gentlemen,
00:13 [Music]
00:15 Now,
00:17 [Music]
00:18 Here is Mr. Mitch "Dark Jack" Downey!
00:22 [Music]
00:29 Late night with the devil.
00:33 Was there a lot of like back in Australia in those days?
00:36 Were there a lot of those people on like talk shows
00:39 or in the country that influenced you in that way?
00:42 Or that you saw?
00:44 Yeah, look, no, we didn't get Carson or Cabot over here,
00:47 who, you know, we sort of researched extensively
00:51 through the writing of the film,
00:53 but we had our own guys to draw on.
00:55 One guy in particular, Don Lane, who was, yeah,
00:59 I mean, there were situations on his, guests on his show
01:03 who, you know, might resemble some of the characters in our film.
01:08 He used to have James Randi on.
01:10 Like this is in Australia in the 70s when it was, you know,
01:13 it was a long way and expensive flight,
01:15 but he would fly James Randi, the Warrens, Doris Stokes,
01:19 Gary Geller.
01:20 We'd fly them over because we were total suckers for that stuff.
01:23 We were such, we were so naive back in the day.
01:27 And Don, you know, I mean, we've said it before,
01:30 but he was quite interested in the supernatural paranormal.
01:35 He kind of, I think he was a believer.
01:38 And so he would do, you know,
01:40 and it's unthinkable that Carson would do a one-hour special
01:43 on some dodgy, you know, psychic from the UK, but Don did it.
01:49 He would just dedicate a whole episode to the psychic.
01:53 And if anyone dared question them, he got quite irate.
01:57 He wanted to believe it.
01:58 He wanted the rest of Australia to believe it as well.
02:01 We're going to have to take a quick break, folks.
02:03 When we come back, though, one of the old friends of our show,
02:05 who are we?
02:06 [Screaming]
02:09 Christy.
02:10 [Gasping]
02:12 Something very intense here.
02:14 [Gasping]
02:15 Perhaps, are we getting another message from Edmund?
02:17 No, no, this is--
02:19 [Screaming]
02:23 I'm getting the name Minnie.
02:27 Does anyone here know a Minnie, please, accept?
02:30 Does this name mean anything to anyone in the studio, no?
02:33 But there's so many things, like, obviously,
02:35 the whole, the reason this works so well is because you feel the dread.
02:39 You feel his desperation.
02:41 And I mean, you mentioned the Warrens,
02:43 and I remember going up to meet her up in Connecticut
02:47 when The Conjuring first came out, before she passed away,
02:51 and her husband had already passed, Lorraine.
02:54 And it's interesting because you--
02:56 they talk about it, it's just life.
02:58 It's not--they don't look at it as supernatural.
03:00 It's just life.
03:01 And that's what's interesting here,
03:03 is that David's character, he's--this guy is traumatized.
03:07 And there's almost no way out, and you capture that dread.
03:11 Is that something that you found sort of as you were writing,
03:15 or is it something that's sort of built after you shot it
03:19 and into the edit?
03:20 All those things, I would say.
03:22 Yeah, it was--I mean, it was something we were hoping to achieve,
03:25 and it's hard to get across in the writing.
03:28 You're just hoping that--just focusing on each moment
03:30 and what that means, that it will add up at the end of the day.
03:33 But, yeah, so it happens on set, it happens in performance,
03:36 and to a degree in the post-production, the sound design.
03:42 We do--there are certain little tricks we employ there
03:46 to help with that.
03:47 But, yeah, we always felt that that sense of building dread,
03:50 that something is going to go wrong, and there's suspense
03:53 in not knowing how or when was key to the success of the film.
03:58 And having that little prologue as well maybe helps.
04:01 Some people are probably going to have a different opinion,
04:03 but we felt that that was a good way of helping to establish
04:06 that sense of dread, that, you know, that fateful night.
04:10 Here we go. Let's see what happens.
04:12 Perhaps a name--it sounds like Minnie.
04:13 Maybe it's like a Millie or a Mandy.
04:15 I had a great-aunt Molly.
04:17 It's Minnie!
04:19 Please, who will accept?
04:22 So much sadness.
04:24 I see a wedding ring.
04:29 An unmarried man with a wedding ring.
04:32 The spirit needs to talk to you!
04:34 Who are you?
04:38 It's okay, folks.
04:39 It's just old Clark Hans acting up.
04:42 But it's also a meditation on ambition
04:44 and how far we'll go to capture things.
04:47 I mean, there's so many of those things in it.
04:49 Could you talk a little bit about, you know, the importance--
04:51 not necessarily--I'm not talking about a message,
04:53 but those overall themes is what sort of pushes
04:56 any kind of horror film because you know that people
04:59 are going to go way farther than they ever should,
05:01 and that's the--it's a cautionary tale in many ways.
05:05 Yeah, I think a lot of good horrors are, really.
05:08 But yeah, and it's Jack--I mean, that's Jack's trajectory
05:11 in the film, but it's also--I think for all the characters,
05:14 and probably in particular June, you know, played by Laura Gordon,
05:17 who has similar sort of moral quandaries there.
05:20 She is, you know, effectively mother to Lily.
05:23 There's a very maternal relationship there,
05:25 very protective.
05:26 But then she's also concerned about furthering her own career,
05:29 and, you know, she's got a book to sell, and is she prepared
05:32 to exploit this child that I think she loves in order to get ahead?
05:38 Can she have both?
05:39 Can she have a cake and eat it?
05:40 And yeah, I think it goes for most of the characters in the story.
05:45 There are kind of all sort of reflections.
05:47 Gone.
05:55 She's gone.
05:58 She's gone.
05:59 Leo.
06:03 We're going to take a quick break, and we're going to be right back
06:10 after these messages.
06:11 [applause]
06:13 [music]
06:15 That's why the skeptic really works, you know, having that aspect
06:26 of perspective and perception, because, you know, in many ways
06:29 at that point, it's about the unreliable narrator sort
06:33 of leading forward.
06:34 And that misdirect is great.
06:36 I won't give it away, but, you know, can you talk about sort
06:39 of finding that element of, you know, you have him as the skeptic
06:43 to be able to sort of test the waters.
06:46 It's about logic and emotion in many ways,
06:49 and how people react.
06:50 Yeah, absolutely.
06:52 You know, it's funny.
06:54 I think audiences tend to latch on to different characters,
07:00 you know, according to their belief system.
07:03 Like my partner, for instance, is an atheist, a skeptic,
07:08 and, you know, her hero is Carmichael Hay.
07:12 And she's really disappointed in the end.
07:16 I won't spoil anything.
07:18 But, yeah.
07:20 And then we've had audiences say, "Oh, who's this Carmichael Hay?
07:25 What a nasty, bombastic individual."
07:29 Yeah.
07:30 You know, so it's interesting getting those different perspectives.
07:33 It does make people, yeah, kind of reflect on their own points of view.
07:37 But I think, you know, going to a movie like this, you know,
07:40 most of us are probably sceptics and, you know,
07:42 consider ourselves rational people.
07:44 But when you're in that, in the darkened room, you're hoping
07:47 that it - you know, you put that aside for 90 minutes and hope that,
07:52 you know, spirits are real and that the devil is real,
07:55 just for that brief window of time.
07:58 So, yeah, we certainly play with that a lot, you know.
08:03 Yeah, I think that's part of the fun of the film.
08:05 No one's going anywhere.
08:06 How could you let it happen, Jack?
08:07 How could you let it happen?
08:09 Please be warned, anyone with young children in the room.
08:11 Good information!
08:12 You're about to see.
08:13 You okay, Jack?
08:15 It's profoundly disturbing and shocking.
08:18 You get out there, Mr. Midnight.
08:22 And you knock him dead.
08:27 (SCREAMING)
08:29 (SCREAMING)
08:31 (SCREAMING)
08:34 (SCREAMING)
08:37 (SCREAMING)
08:39 [BLANK_AUDIO]