The Dark Parade

Hey there everybody, it's your pal Bo here.

Just a quick note on the episode you're about to listen to.

Because it's been a while since I've been doing this on the regular and changing some software and et cetera, et cetera, that is just me excusing myself for the fact that I was recording this episode on the wrong microphone.

It's not terrible, but it's definitely not the silky, smooth sounds that you are hearing right now.

Apologies that will obviously be corrected moving forward, but hopefully it's not too much of a distraction on what I think is a pretty fun episode of Found Footage Fool.

So that's it, kick back, enjoy the rest of the episode and we'll talk soon.

Welcome to a bonus episode of The Dark Parade.

My name is Beau and I'm a Found Footage Fool.

Tell me the camera thing isn't annoying.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Found Footage Fool.

I'm your host, Bo, the fool in question.

It has been a while since I've done one of these.

In that time, I have completed my additional education to pursue my new career.

And now that that's done, I'm like, well, I've got free time on my hands, how do I waste that?

So here we are.

Anyway, look, hey, I appreciate you guys sticking around and being patient with me while I was just forever busy.

But now that that's settled down, I can actually do stuff I enjoy again.

And to that end, a new episode of Found Footage Fool, as well as the launching of a project in about a week, that, you know, it's the culmination of my life's work.

But the less said about that right now, the better.

That will be a real dumb thing.

Anyway, I'm waxing poetic about one giant tease.

At any rate, the business before us is a collection of found footage movies, three, to be exact.

And I wanted, like the idea of possession has been on my mind, you know, on the back end of this, we're going to talk about Late Night With the Devil.

And I was curious about possession films in the found footage subgenre.

And so I went in search of a few and here we are.

So let's waste no more time and get right to this.

Of course, this is not some run-of-the-mill subjective ranking of found footage films.

There is actual science at work here.

Something that will extend to our new project.

Because I am nothing, if not science-based, and so we have a series of questions, and we want to make sure that we approach everything with a level of seriousness and precision.

And so we have five criteria that we use to base all found footage films on.

That is, of course, why are they keeping the camera on?

Does this make sense?

How are the characters?

Are they annoying as hell?

Or is there something interesting and engaging about these characters?

Does it feel authentic?

Does it feel like real found footage?

Then watchability, is it something that hangs together?

Can you sit down and just enjoy it as a whole, as a coherent film, as a narrative with proper act structure?

And then finally, is it scary?

So again, no subjectivity anywhere in that list.

It is pure science.

So let us apply it to our first film.

That is a film that is probably the most frustrating of the lot.

It's a movie entitled Chasing the Devil.

And so the basic premise of Chasing the Devil is, I'll tell you what, we'll just read the IMDb synopsis before we launch into it and apply our science.

The summary goes thusly, it's kind of long.

Patrick McCourt doesn't accept the explanation of his sister's mysterious death as suicide and instead teams up with a team of paranormal investigators to delve deeper into the inexplicable circumstances that surround what he believes to be murder.

The team's investigation leaves them from one bizarre and frightening clue to another, at the center of which seems to exist something evil and terrifying, a presence well beyond their wildest imaginations and experiences.

Before long, they realize this deadly entity has now targeted each of them and they are confronted with the impossible challenge of defeating it and saving their own lives.

In the end, what survives and is presented here is the disturbing footage that Patrick and his team shot, footage that, if seen by others, likely endangers the viewer, marking them as the next victim of this powerful and evil force.

Be careful of what you chase.

You just might end up catching it.

Okay, so this is the, I think that the official synopsis given by the production company or the release company, Gravitas Ventures.

And, you know, that pretty much sums things up.

Here's the frustrating thing about Chasing the Devil.

It's kind of an interesting premise.

Not kind of an interesting premise, it is an interesting premise.

The idea of, hey, there was this suicide that I think is a murder because of the behavior of my sister.

And oh, by the way, the more we dig into this, the closer we get to this evil entity.

You know, there's something kind of traditional about that that almost lovecraftian, even though this isn't Elder Gods and so forth, but it's that, hey, I'm scratching the surface of a thing and all of a sudden this other world opens up that is malevolent.

And that's interesting.

The idea of a paranormal investigator crew, you know, rubbing up against a thing that's real is a bit of a tired trope.

And this movie came out in 2014, so maybe less tropey then, although that's tough to say.

But it, I mean, it's just so familiar and tired and worn out at this point.

If I never see another found footage movie, that is a paranormal team discovering that the thing that they are investigating is real, that's too soon.

But, you know, the problem kind of lies there, but we'll get into that in a minute when we talk about the tropes.

It's just the execution.

The premise is interesting.

There's actually a pretty good, not necessarily exorcism scene, but certainly possession scene that I thought was pretty creepy and pretty disturbing.

But it's just buried under all this other mess of a film.

Anyway, let's apply some science to this.

Otherwise, I will veer into the realm of the subjective.

And that's not where we live on this show.

We are fact-based.

We are committed to veracity.

And so, is there a good reason to keep the camera on?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's the reason they are keeping the camera on.

We have an actual cameraman, although he is sometimes forgotten when they're introducing people in a scene that Frank the cameraman is just conveniently left out of the conversation.

You're like, man, poor Frank.

You know, like he's always saying, like, well, you know, I'm gonna fly on the wall.

I'll pretend I'm not here.

It's like, yeah, but you know, when you meet someone, you might want to introduce them.

Like it was this creep with a camera lingering over your shoulder.

So, you know, that's a little silly.

But in terms of why do they have the cameras on, they're making a documentary.

They use like security camera footage and webcam footage and so forth.

And the whole thing is sort of bookended by a guy who's like, you know, I'm making this video as proof of what happened.

So all of that is fine.

So keeping the camera on, totally fine.

The characters, oh, okay.

Here's some trouble.

The characters are not great.

And it's really, you know, you hate to say this because, look, the material is not good.

But I don't know that these actors are enhancing the material that they are given.

And it's a little hammy a lot of the time, especially some of the secondary characters.

There's one guy that comes across as if he may be possessed by the devil.

And I mean, like he's really fourth wall breaking and it's like, again, I don't know if this is direction or performance or script, but all of this is wrong.

Stop all of this.

All right, so characters, not so great.

They're kind of thinly written.

Yeah, they're just unappealing people to be hanging around with.

And in particular, there's a guy, a bearded fella who is on the paranormal team and he's kind of the comic relief.

He's the real jokester of the group and it's just painful.

It's so unfunny and it makes that character so unlikable that what starts as like, oh, okay, I guess this guy's going to be a little jokey becomes I need him to stop talking.

I hate everything that's coming out of his mouth.

It is turning me against this movie in a big way.

Yeah, to have this unlikable character and make him, you know, heroic, in sneer quotes, not great.

So then we get to authenticity.

Does this feel real?

And not really.

Again, this, I think, is a result of, you know, the way that the characters come across.

It feels very, very stagey.

It feels very, like everybody feels like they're acting, you know.

With one exception, I think there is, about mid-movie, our heroes run into another possession case, a girl named Haley.

And one of the things that's kind of interesting about the mechanics of this movie is that, hey, we are chasing this story and these clues, even though some of the leaps of logic with the clues is a little much.

But we're chasing these clues, and we find this other possessed girl named Haley.

And Alisa Eberle is the name of the actor who plays Haley in the movie.

And she's good.

She's like kind of creepy and very physical.

And, you know, it's kind of an uncomfortable scene.

It's pretty well done.

And she brings an authenticity to it that I think the movie lacks most of the time.

And so, yeah, that was kind of a welcome reprieve in the rest of the film.

And she is, you know, she's bounced around some television, this Elisa Virl, been in some kind of B movies here and there.

And, you know, but I think she's good.

I think she's probably the best performer in the entire film.

OK, well, let's keep going with our criteria here.

And so authenticity, not so much.

Watchability, all right, let's think about this.

Watchability, I mean, it's kind of there because the movie does have a pace and things do keep happening.

So it's almost plot heavy to a fault, but that does make it a pretty breezy watch.

So, yeah, I think this is OK in terms of watchability.

I mean, it's not good because of all the performance stuff we talked about and leaps of logic and all of that, but this is where you're damning with faint praise, but there was some real trash amongst found footage movies, and not that this is not schlocky and poorly executed in many ways.

But it does have a vision of what it's trying to do, and it is trying to accomplish something, and there's some ambition, and I think the film's ambition far exceeds its grasp, but there's something about it, and so yes, I do think it's mostly watchable.

You know, you can do worse in the found footage realm.

Then you get to scares.

Is the movie scary?

And that's the problem, right?

Is that it really isn't, and at a certain point, it gets very silly, especially at the end of the movie.

That is a terribly silly and overly familiar ending to a movie like this, but there is that sort of centerpiece possession scene that's pretty good and pretty interesting thanks to the performance by Alisa Burrell.

There are moments, there are moments that are kind of creepy, and I think the demon voice isn't terrible.

So yeah, there are some moments, there are some blips on the radar, like this is that patient that refuses to die, there is still some brain activity popping up on the EKG.

Yeah, it's an interesting, it's an interesting failure of a movie.

It's not a good movie, but there is something in it, and that which is one of those things that's hard to convey, right?

Like, no, I'm not recommending this movie, but if you watch a lot of found footage movies, this isn't the worst.

So, you know, there we have it.

There's Chasing the Devil, a real mixed bag, and ultimately very frustrating movie.

But if you're in the mood for, you know, found footage possession movies, boy, there are some terrible ones out there.

And speaking of, let's get to our next movie.

Our next movie is entitled The Devil Inside from 2012.

The IMDB summary of that film goes in Italy.

A woman becomes involved in a series of unauthorized exorcisms during her mission to discover what happened to her mother, who allegedly murdered three people during her own exorcism.

So, not dissimilar, in fact, to the premise of Chasing the Devil, but I would argue, ladies and jelly spoons, that Chasing the Devil a better movie than The Devil Inside, directed by William Britt Bell, who would go on to do one of my all-time favorite schlocky movies, Orphan First Kill, and the somewhat successful The Boy, at any rate.

Yeah, so, you're in safe hands with William Britt Bell, director of Orphan First Kill.

At any rate, this feels like a movie that was built to capitalize on the popularity of found footage movies at the time.

This is going back a dozen years when this sub-genre wasn't totally worn out.

And here is the problem with The Devil Inside.

It has better actors than anything that goes on in Chasing the Devil, and yet nothing happens.

Chasing the Devil has this pursuit of this story that gets crazier and crazier until it just gets ridiculous and dumb and overly familiar.

This movie has nothing going on for an hour and ten minutes of the movie.

Everything happens in the last ten to fifteen minutes of this film, which is all the, like, oh, there's possession stuff and demon stuff, and the rest of the time, it's just boring sitting around talking about it or we're going to be in a spooky room that maybe results in a jump scare, but nothing's really happening.

It's just the worst.

It's so dull.

It'll put you right out.

Like, if you are an insomniac that is not responding to heavy medication, may I introduce you to the first hour and ten minutes of The Devil Inside.

It will take care of any lingering insomnia problems.

It's terrible.

So, you know, look, I'm not saying it's terrible because of some sort of personal opinion of mine.

I'm using science, so let's talk about this.

Keeping the camera on, yeah, sure.

They're making a documentary, fine.

I'll give it to them because who could possibly care.

Then characters, again, the blandness of these characters.

There's a point where like one of them goes bad, and you're like, oh, right, this guy, what was his deal again?

He was a bad priest or something, or just wasn't like, ah, who could care?

They're just so boring.

Even and especially the main character, who is this girl, not girl, young woman, going in pursuit of a story about her mother.

And it's just dull as dog dirt.

I can't stress to you how unappealing and bland and boring the characters are in addition to everything else that happens in the movie.

All right, let's get to authenticity.

Authenticity, yeah, I mean, kind of okay.

The performers are good enough.

The actors at work here are good enough actors that for the most part, it feels like they're not acting.

You know, unlike Chasing the Devil that felt very performative.

This feels more like one of the weird things about Chasing the Devil, not to re-litigate that, but one of the weird things about that film is unlike a lot of found footage movies that air on the side of, hey, we don't really have a script, just riff, Chasing the Devil felt very scripted.

And this feels less so.

This feels more like there was probably a script, or at least that back of the envelope, hey, here's what we need to accomplish in this scene, and you guys are actors, and we're just going to improv a little bit and build on things and construct a scene out of where we need to go.

And that feels okay a lot of times in this movie.

I mean, it's not interesting, but the authenticity is mostly okay.

Then you get to watchability, and that's where everything falls apart.

Again, it's so boring, it's hard to believe that a found footage movie about pursuing exorcisms in Rome could be this dull.

But it is, it is.

And the watchability for that reason.

Is in the sub-basement.

I would recommend Chasing the Devil over this movie ten times out of ten.

So that's not great.

And then you get to scares, and there is absolutely nothing scary about this movie.

This is one of those examples of a movie, and I'm thinking of Along Came the Devil, is like this for me as well, where the end of the movie should have been the end of the first act.

You know, like, okay, well, now we've got an inciting incident and a story to tell, but by the time you get to the end of The Devil Inside and something interesting is happening, then we're going to credits and flashing a website that you can go to for more information about what the sequel that never happened or whatever the hell.

Like, this is, I mean, it's a bold move to be like, hey, would you like to be bored online as well as in the theater?

Go to this website about this boring as shit movie you saw.

Ugh, it's terrible.

All right, so yeah, like, this is just not a good movie.

I mean, scientifically speaking, this is just a bad film.

You know, anything interesting that happens is just buried under an hour and ten minutes of nothing.

So bad job.

Cheers.

Cheers to The Devil Inside.

Which brings us to the final movie that we're going to talk about on this episode, which is the much more recent Late Night With the Devil, directed by Cameron Karnes and Colin Karnes.

I think they're Australian guys.

The summary goes, a live television broadcast in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation's living rooms.

Okay, I'm going to do this with as few spoilers as possible.

I promise I will not give anything substantial away, but if you want to go into it totally cold, I will say I would recommend this movie, but now let's get into it.

So you have been warned.

Again, I'm not going to spoil anything like crazy, but if you just don't want to know anything, then best wishes.

Go with God.

Okay, here we are.

So, Late Night With the Devil is a very good movie.

It's not a great movie.

And I know there's been a lot of buzz around it.

And in particular, I was listening recently to Duncan McLeish's review of Late Night With the Devil, which I mostly agreed with, although I think he liked it more than I did, at least based on his score.

But I agree with a lot of what he said.

And it is a showcase for David Desmalchian.

I think that's right, David Desmalchian.

It is a really fun period piece, that kind of mid-70s, Merv Griffin, Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, like that era of the sort of variety talk show, where you would have kind of weird stuff on, you would have weird acts, and jugglers, and politicians, and book authors, and singers, and comedians, and dog acts, and all of this in one show.

And the basic premise.

Is that David Dismalchin is a host of one of these shows in the mid-70s, and he is, his wife has died, and he is losing a ratings battle to Johnny Carson, and the ratings continue to go down, and the question is, is he all worn out now?

Is this the end?

Is his character about to lose his job in the show, and what would become of him, and etc.

etc.?

This whole story is told during the single episode that is captured, the true found footage kind of thing, of like, hey, here's this television show that aired one time in the 1970s, and look at this crazy shit.

So, and I like that.

Also, Michael Ironside does a little bit of narration at the very beginning to kind of give you some background on the show and whatnot.

And so, in a weird way, it has something in common with like a Lake Mungo or a Savage Land where it's like, oh, here's a documentary about this thing.

So, at any rate, you know, David S.

Melchian's host is falling on hard times, both emotionally and the show is starting to flag in the ratings, and he decides on Halloween night they're going to do this crazy show where they have a lot of guests that, you know, have like weird supernatural ties.

One guy is a skeptic, sort of an amazing Randy sort of character of like a debunker of things like that.

And then you have somebody that claims to be a medium.

And then, of course, the big show stopper, which is a young woman who is said to be possessed, had been a member of a cult.

And she is going to be the big centerpiece guest.

And so the movie unfolds from there.

That's as much as I will spoil, which is the most basic of premises that you will know in the first 5 to 10 minutes of the film.

And as it unfolds, it really gets into some interesting themes about the price of fame and the cost of success and the morality of this kind of thing, as well as some good old fashioned, weird supernatural demonic business afoot.

And all of that is pretty fun.

There's one moment in particular that is almost, not almost, it is, it is Cronenberryian in its level of body horror.

And as the film goes on, it builds and builds, and then we have our big explosion.

Here is what happened.

Here is the fate of this television show.

So all of that is pretty good.

It's pretty good.

David S.

Malachan is amazing in this movie.

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