M I DN I G H T E R S

BY DON KAYE

Late Night With The Devil

Brooklyn 45

Filmmaker Ted Geoghegan made his feature directorial debut in 2015 with rural horror We Are Still Here, following it up in 2017 with the equally acclaimed —and bloody—historical thriller Mohawk. Geoghegan, whose previous films were set in 1979 and 1814, respectively, sets his latest effort in December 1945, as five lifelong friends, military veterans all, assemble in a Brooklyn brownstone to support their troubled host and deal with their own post-war trauma. But when their host impulsively starts a séance, the ghosts of the past are called forth. Expect lots of blood and the kinds of eerie specters that Geoghegan was so good at deploying in We Are Still Here. The cast includes Anne Ramsay (The Taking of Deborah Logan), indie horror auteur Larry Fessenden (Jakob’s Wife), Jeremy Holm (Mr. Robot), and Kristina Klebe (Two Witches).

Talk To Me

There is something genuinely unsettling about found-footage films that purport to be archival recordings of real broadcasts. This new effort from the writing/ directing team of Cameron and Colin Cairnes (100 Bloody Acres) takes it a step further by setting their tale on a 1977 late-night TV talk show. Ratings-challenged host Jack Delroy (The Suicide Squad’s David Dastmalchian) plans a Halloween special, only to unwittingly unleash evil forces into living rooms everywhere.

The Wrath Of Becky

“After living off the grid for two years, Becky finds herself going toe to toe against Darryl, the leader of a fascist organization, on the eve of an organized attack.” That’s the concise plot description of this indie thriller, directed and co-written by Matt Angel (Hypnotic, The Open House) and starring Lulu Wilson and Seann William Scott.

This buzzed-about horror has already made its mark at Sundance, and now Australian twin filmmakers Daniel and Michael Philippou bring their vision of a new genre franchise to Austin. The Lord of the Rings veteran Miranda Otto is the only well-known name in a cast of largely unfamiliar youngsters, as a group of friends discovers they can use an embalmed hand to open the door to the spirit world. Of course, opening that door leads to terrible consequences as supernatural forces are unleashed in the world of the living. The Philippous have already been praised for injecting fresh energy into a well-worn idea, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that A24—home of recent horror groundbreakers like The Witch, Hereditary, and X—has picked up the U.S. rights to the film.