Nain Rouge wreaks havoc on the big screen in Michigan-made 'Devil's Night'

John Monaghan | Special to the Detroit Free Press

Nearly 150 years after his first appearance in history books, the impish Nain Rouge is finally making his feature-length debut on the big screen.

“Devil's Night: Dawn of the Nain Rouge,” a Michigan-made thriller, screens at 4:30 and 5 p.m. on Sunday at the Emagine Novi. Cast and crew members, including director Sam Logan Khaleghi, will appear at both screenings, which will mark the film's Detroit-area premiere.

The movie is set in Lake Orion and Detroit, where several bizarre murders point to the supernatural, specifically the Nain Rouge, the notorious red-faced demon figure who is rumored to have haunted Detroit since the days when the area was home to Native Americans and early French settlers.

Sightings of the creature, whose French name translates to “Red Dwarf,” are believed to bring about bad luck. Some accounts of sightings stretch back to hardships suffered by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac in the early 1700s. The Nain Rouge is also said to have appeared just before the 1763 Battle of Bloody Run, which resulted in the deaths of 20 British troops.

“This folklore is an important and fun part of Detroit history,” says filmmaker Khaleghi, who was born and raised in Detroit but now lives in West Bloomfield. “It was time for someone to bring the Nain Rouge story to the silver screen.”

Most of the movie was filmed in 2018, and significant scenes were shot at Detroit's dilapidated Packard and Fisher plants, the Detroit Historical Museum and in various police precincts. An especially dramatic drone shot shows the Nain Rouge, sporting a black hoodie and a swishing rat tale and running atop the roof of the downtown Foundation Hotel.

“Devils' Night" also includes footage taken at the annual Marche du Nain Rouge, held in Midtown Detroit each March. Costumed revelers can be seen dispatching the creature with a comically long prop knife.

A ceremonial knife stolen from a museum figures into the script, co-written by Aaron Herman Russman. It finds a military veteran (Jesi Jensen from Oxford) and a police detective (Nathan Kane Mathers, brother of Eminem) joining forces to destroy the Nain Rouge.

“This was his first acting role," Khaleghi says of Mathers, "so as a director, I was elated to get that fresh, authentic performance of a real person out of him. He makes a great cop on camera.”

The movie also features WJBK-TV (Fox 2) news anchor Amy Andrews and Swifty McVay from the hip-hop group D12 in small roles as the mayors of Lake Orion and Detroit respectively. McVay is also on a soundtrack that includes music from Obie Trice, Kuniva and 80 Empire.

In an attempt to reach the widest possible audience, Khaleghi has made sure that “Devil's Night” crosses over several movie genres and includes strong female roles. “It's not a straight-up horror film,” he notes. “Until that third act, it's 80% action-thriller-suspense.”

Khaleghi and his producing partners, Farmington Hills-based Kyyba films, are looking to distribute the film on several platforms. They note that Sunday's screenings are the best way for Detroit-area filmgoers to see their movie in a theater.

'Devil's Night: Dawn of the Nain Rouge'

Screenings at 4:30 & 5 p.m. Sun.

Emagine Novi

44425 W. Twelve Mile, Novi

248-468-2990

emagine-entertainment.com

$15