Brothers/Filmmakers Colin & Cameron Caires talk to The Inside Reel about perspective, humor, practical effects and finding the line in regards to their new horror film: "Late Night With The Devil" from Shudder and IFC Films.
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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 See, I want to give away the end, but it just goes very weird.
00:38 Weird and lurid, but it's very specific in what it does, you know.
00:44 Was that just trying to capture a certain kind of imagery
00:47 that you wanted to do once he makes the jump, if you will?
00:51 Yeah.
00:52 I think again, you know, visually,
00:54 it still comes back to that period and films of that era,
00:59 why things were...
01:01 But it is, it's like, are we entering, you know,
01:03 yeah, how much can you say without giving stuff away?
01:05 But, you know, is this literally...
01:08 Is this real or is this a man, you know...
01:11 Or is it in Jack's mind or is it Carmichael's?
01:15 Is it a hypnotism that someone is, you know,
01:17 are we being misdirected by him still?
01:19 Or is it just the audience going insane?
01:21 I mean...
01:23 The devil may well have control of our TVs and our minds.
01:28 So we love the idea that people can draw their own conclusions as to,
01:32 you know, yeah, what it all means.
01:35 Whoa, now, as you know, here on Night Owls,
01:37 we think it's very important to keep an open mind.
01:42 Please welcome Dr June Ross Mitchell and Lily,
01:45 the young subject of the book, Conversations With The Devil.
01:48 I really don't think it's a good idea, Jack.
01:50 It's becoming more unpredictable.
01:52 That's a good thing. That's why we still do live TV.
01:54 Ladies and gentlemen, please stay tuned for a live television first
01:58 as we attempt to commune with the devil.
02:01 Lily, can you hear me?
02:12 Good to see you again, Jack.
02:20 Humour is so important to it, the timing and how that throws it sort of off.
02:24 Can you talk about finding sort of that in between?
02:28 Because David was telling me, like, even just him crossing his legs
02:31 and looking like this can be a humorous moment.
02:34 And he really loved those things because he said he's very technical.
02:38 And he's told me this before.
02:39 But can you talk about finding that humour with the band,
02:43 with the, you know, all these different things, if you could?
02:46 I think that was, you know, going back to what you're saying,
02:48 lulling people into this false sense of security,
02:51 knowing that something bad will happen at some point.
02:54 And that was part of it, just to make it feel as real and light.
02:57 There had to be a lightness to it.
02:59 But, you know, ironically, it's that lightness that kind of makes you realise,
03:03 "Oh, shit, it's going to have to change at some point."
03:05 So, you know, you see some films that do the '70s thing
03:10 or, you know, try to recreate talk shows or TV,
03:14 and often it looks really pastiche-y, you know.
03:17 They've just - everything's a little bit too big and garish.
03:21 So, I don't know, for us it was - with the jokes, I don't know.
03:26 I mean, yeah, we struggled for a long time with the monologue and all that.
03:30 And, you know, we've done quite a bit of comedy stuff over the years
03:33 and we know a lot of good comedy performers and writers back in Australia.
03:36 So we felt like it's stuff we could pull off, but it was still hard work,
03:41 because it is, like you say, trying to find that balance.
03:43 You don't want to go too big and too far
03:45 and make it feel like it is just a parody of the period.
03:49 Lily, I understand that you have a name for this thing
03:53 that lives inside of you.
03:55 Mm-hm.
03:57 I call him Mr Wriggles.
03:59 Why do you call him that?
04:01 He kind of wriggles his way inside my head
04:08 and then he wriggles his way out.
04:10 But with June's help, you are able to control him.
04:15 June says that everyone has a demon inside them,
04:19 but we can't always control them, can we?
04:21 But see, that's when you guys finally rip the rug out
04:25 and it just goes - excuse my language - apeshit,
04:28 when it literally loses its mind.
04:30 I mean, that's just a comparison of doing practical,
04:33 doing the effects and making sure they -
04:36 I mean, it just hits you like a ton of bricks.
04:38 And I watched it with somebody else, and I went, "Wow!"
04:41 But can you talk about sort of finding the right level of that?
04:46 Because it is the right level.
04:48 Yeah. Ooh, tricky.
04:49 I mean, it's just a process, I guess.
04:51 But we knew it had to go there, ultimately,
04:54 and you want this sense prior to that,
04:57 you know, you're drip-feeding little elements, spooky elements,
05:01 but with the promise -
05:02 if people have stayed with you for that period,
05:05 you've got to deliver on the good stuff kind of thing.
05:08 So we didn't hold back.
05:09 Yeah.
05:10 Look, I think it is a bit of a leap of faith on the audience's part.
05:13 It was certainly on our part, but, like, it was liberating.
05:16 Once we went there and we sort of, you know,
05:19 felt we had a resolution to our story, it was like,
05:22 "Well, let's just go all the way, let's embrace that
05:26 and blow people's minds."
05:28 # OPERATIC SINGING #
05:31 Gus, time to move.
05:34 I got it, Jack.
05:36 # OPERATIC SINGING #
05:42 Jack, there's off-scripts for that thing.
05:45 How the hell should I know?
05:47 # OPERATIC SINGING #
05:52 # SCREAMING #
05:59 I do - I've got to say, I like what you guys are saying.
06:02 Like, filmmaking is a leap of faith
06:04 because you never quite know how it's going to turn out, you know?
06:07 So, because I take this as completely -
06:09 is it completely different from what you thought it was,
06:12 or did it go along a certain line of what you guys hoped it would be?
06:16 Because you never know.
06:18 No, you don't know, but we are very - we're happy.
06:21 We're satisfied with the result.
06:23 And it did - look, the ending, you know,
06:25 the last sort of 20 pages of the script were in a state of flux,
06:28 really, until pre-production.
06:30 Maybe a week, two weeks out from the shoot,
06:32 we were still tinkering with that, moving things around.
06:35 But as cut, it's still - it's pretty close to the shooting script,
06:39 I think.
06:40 So there was a plan, there was, but we were never quite sure
06:44 with the addition of music and sound design.
06:46 You know, we weren't sure if there was going to be any music at all,
06:49 other than the band.
06:51 Yeah.
06:52 There's diegetic music.
06:53 The score.
06:54 Yeah.
06:55 And I think we've, again, allowed ourselves a few liberties
06:58 late in the piece.
06:59 Yeah.
07:00 It's funny because, you know, you read some reviews or some,
07:03 I guess, just some random punters and their take
07:06 on the whole found footage thing, and it's like,
07:08 "Oh, you're breaking the rules of found footage?"
07:10 And, you know, you go to this documentary and then you go
07:13 to the tape and it's like, "I didn't realise there were rules."
07:16 You know?
07:17 I just thought, "And if there were, and if we knew about them,
07:20 we probably would have broken them anyway."
07:22 No-one's going anywhere.
07:23 How could you let it happen, Jack?
07:25 How could you let it happen?
07:26 Please be warned, anyone with young children in the room.
07:28 Go to information!
07:29 Go to information!
07:30 You're about to see...
07:31 You okay, Jack?
07:32 ...what's profoundly disturbing and shocking.
07:35 Get out there, Mr Midnight.
07:39 And you are not going to dare to...
07:44 (SCREAMING)
07:46 (SCREAMING)
07:47 (SCREAMING)
07:49 (GUNSHOTS)
07:51 (GUNSHOTS)
07:52 (SCREAMING)
07:53 (GUNSHOTS)
07:54 (SCREAMING)
07:55 (whooshing)
07:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]