The Toronto After Dark film festival got started on Thursday night with a bang with Late Night with the Devil. And it was a crowd-pleaser. If you are a horror fan, this is one to seek out, this is one to demand from your streaming service, this should move to the top of your viewing list.

It was fun, smart, entertaining as hell and proves once again that David Dastmalchian is a gift to genre film. This time out he plays Jack Delroy, a late-night television host in the 70s, who can’t quite nudge Johnny Carson out of the number one spot to be the king of late night.

It’s Halloween 1979, and with an opening, and establishing narration by Micheal Ironside, the stage is set to takes us behind a recording of a live taping of the show from that night. The energy crisis is with us, satanic panic is on the rise and Jack is in need of some serious sweeps week ratings if he’s hoping to stay on for another year.

He stacks the show with a psychic, Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), an illusionist turned sceptical debunker, Carmichael Hunt (Ian Bliss) and in a nod to Michelle Remembers, a doctor, June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and the subject of her new book, Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) a young woman who may have been and still is possessed by a demon.

With his sidekick, Gus (Rhys Auteri) at his side, the pair are ready to scare up some ratings, but as the film cuts between the recorded broadcast, and black and white footage during the breaks, we watch a horrifying night unfold as the past comes due. Lilly may be all that she claims to be.

Brilliantly funny, scripted perfectly to catch the times, and the sensibilities, this one is firing on all cylinders as it tells its tale, pulling us into the broadcast, and watching as things begin to go terribly, horrifically wrong.

The audience ate this one up, there was applause, laughter in all the right spots, and an appreciation for the work of the Brothers Cairnes and the way they captured the 70s pastiche from the clothes, to expressions, and the camerawork. And Dastmalchian was the perfect choice for the role of Jack Delroy. He conveys the pain the man has gone through, and the ability to switch it off when the television camera is on, swapping between charming host, and man struggling to save his career.

And when things go sideways, the effects work wonderfully, and some of the sequences are truly delightful, and arguably not for the squeamish, at least that one scene.

This may end up being the word-of-mouth title that every horror fan talks up until it lands on a streaming service. But if you get the chance to attend a screening, make the effort. This one is worth it. The editing, the casting, the story, it all plays out wonderfully, and is a wonderful film for horror fans.

Please check it out, please talk it up! See this film.

There was also a fantastic Canadian short before this one, Soul Proprieter from Scott Riopelle, that was dark, funny, and tied in very well with the theme of possession that played out in Late Night. A priest is exorcising a young woman of the demon infesting her, but that’s just the beginning of a long battle of wills.

Toronto After Dark continues to be the premiere festival for genre films, and you can check out other titles, get tickets and screening times here. And I’ll see you After Dark!