I wouldn't have paid this film any mind except for the minor flap it caused in the movie press for using artificial intelligence in a few clips – at a time when Hollywood is in a meltdown-level panic about the coming threat of AI, it did the film's marketing for it for free.

I'm pretty sure I remember the creators (Australian writer/directors Cameron and Colin Cairnes) going on the record defending themselves about it, but they must have been jumping for joy their little horror flick was getting coverage in the Hollywood trades.

It's also the second film I've seen in the last little while that's made to look like it comes from another era (along with Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made) and does a brilliant job of it in everything from the staging and costuming to the technical look of a late 70s-era late night variety show.

David Dastmalchain is Jack Delroy, the host of Night Owls, a successful night talk show that can't quite depose the king of TV, Johnny Carson. The intro tells about how the host blazed onto the scene, started to dip in the ratings, lost his beloved wife to cancer and went underground for a period but has now come back to have one more crack at being the king of the timeslot. He's also the member of a highly secretive occult club with very influential members, but that connection comes later.

It's sweeps week, when the networks take particular notice of ratings to decide what to renew, and Jack, his slimy producer Leo and his onscreen right hand man/comic foil Gus (Rhys Auteri) have hatched a plan to own the night by putting on a Halloween special.

His guests will be the theatrical psychic Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), former stage magician turned professional skeptic Carmichael (Ian Bliss, who I haven't seen in anything since the Matrix sequels and one of the series of that hit crime show Underbelly) and parapsychologist June (Laura Gordon) with her young subject Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) who she claims is haunted by a demon.

While the house band in the background, Gus and Jack play their roles with banter and showmanship, Christou throws himself about like a dervish, seeming to be the biggest fake on TV until he comes up with a name that sees Jack become visibly shaken – the nickname he had for his wife before her death that nobody knows about.

But Christou has barely made his mark on the show before spewing up a black liquid and collapsing, Jack quickly throwing to commercial. With the studio audience settled down and assured Christou is fine (he's anything but, as we learn later), June brings Lilly out, a teenage girl who's so preternaturally well behaved and eager it's creepy.

Jack explains that Lilly was the sole survivor of a Satanic cult massacre and that after working with her at her institute, June is convinced she still has mark of a demon on her. Against her wishes, Jack insists they stage a demonstration, which ends with Lilly levitating in her chair on live TV and chiding Jack with a hateful look about the affair he's been having with June since even before his wife died. Once again, there's an abrupt cut to commercial.

In the final stages, the smug Carmichael offers to show the whole charade up as the sham he knows it is by hypnotising Gus... and makes a big mistake in doing so, one that will leave more than one unfortunate guest and staffer on Night Owls dead.

You don't ordinarily think of The Muppet Show when you consider the horror genre, but this film uses the same storytelling device – showing you what's going on out on stage as well as cutting behind the scenes, hitting and setting up turns in the plot very effectively based on what the characters know but can't say on TV.

Other than that it looks fantastic, and you can fully believe the writer/directors being inspired by variety TV from my childhood like The Don Lane Show. It's not terrifically scary, but it tells a very cool little story, builds an effective world and blends some familiar moods and styles very effectively.