Laura Gordon

In the 1977 chat show of Late Night with the Devil (2024), Laura Gordon's June Ross-Mitchell is careful and worried while other guests display their confidence. Fayssal Bazzi's Christou works the audience; Ian Bliss's Carmichael Haig wears his scepticism with contempt. Gordon lets June seem out of her depth without making her look unintelligent. We like that care: she gives us someone to worry about among people determined to impress.

Directors Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes get useful work from that contrast, particularly alongside Ingrid Torelli's Lilly. We shifted in our seats when Lilly looked straight into the lens and held her polite smile. The fright belongs to Torelli, but Gordon's worried presence helps the guest sequence feel like more than a succession of horror turns. The contrast gives us a reason to watch the guests, rather than simply wait for the next scare, and the film is stronger while it allows June's unease to hold our attention. When the film stops trusting its chat-show format, her contribution cannot make up for what it loses.

Gordon built her screen career through Australian television and independent film. Horror was already there in Saw V (2008), where she played Ashley, before the lead role of Claire in Undertow (2018). In the latter, the work centres on a woman in psychological distress. Gordon's attention to backstory and close work with directors suit the difficult, sometimes unlikable women she is often cast to play. The American series Hotel Cocaine (2024), in which she plays Janice Nichols, is a reminder to look beyond the horror credits.

We are less persuaded by Insidious: Out of the Further (2026), in which she plays Ingrid Lilith Hall. Jacob Chase finds scares in sofa cushions and dental work, but the family story cannot keep moving. We would not recommend it simply because she is in it. Start with Late Night with the Devil, with a little patience for what follows its strong first hour.