Director Lee Daniels (“Precious”) turns his attention to the supernatural in the 2024 shocker “The Deliverance” (Netflix). Based on stories of the haunting of an Indiana house, the film offers Daniels’ take on some well-known horror elements: the seance, demonic possession, exorcism and the notion that a piece of real estate can be a mystical portal to the damned.
Much of the film’s setting is informed by its director’s familiarity with the culture and rituals of the Black church. We’re now a half-century removed from the original version of “The Exorcist,” a film that not only vaulted the horror genre to A-list blockbuster status, but used Roman Catholic rites as means to convey Gothic horror. It broke a taboo, very much enforced by the Hollywood Code, to depict religion in a benevolent light. In films as pleasant as “Going My Way,” “The Bells of St. Mary’s” and “The Sound of Music,” the church was a scenic backdrop to light comedy and romance. Since “The Exorcist,” Roman Catholicism has frequently been depicted as a house of horrors, a place of lurid bogeymen, medieval atmospherics and more than a whiff of Satanism.
If “The Exorcist” paved the way for religious imagery in exploitation fare, Daniels apparently wants to use the horror genre to get viewers to examine their relationship to larger questions. “I’m here,” the director told the Boston Herald, “to scare you into finding your faith.”
Like “The Exorcist,” this new effort assembles an A-level cast, including Andra Day (“The United States vs. Billie Holliday”), Mo’Nique (“Precious”), Octavia Spencer (“The Help”) and Glenn Close (“Damages”).
— Apple TV+ launches the six-part docuseries “K-Pop Idols.” Far from being an “American Idol” competition series or contest, it follows artists including Jessi, CRAVITY, and BLACKSWAN on grueling world tours as they face the pressures of performance as well as the emotional toll of being away from family and loved ones for months and years at a time.
The series and the whole scene are paradoxical. On one hand, there is the saccharine and manufactured nature of blended groups performing the safest form of musical for an audience of adolescents. On the other is the cultural dislocation of a “global” music that is both everywhere and nowhere.
While the “K” in K-pop stands for Korean, the voices and accents heard here represent an international polyglot blend dominated by valley-girl upspeak. The scene bounces from Paris to L.A. and back, a jet-setter’s life without any of the glory or seeming glitz. The life can be a grind.
The musical genre has conquered the world at a considerable cost to some of its players. Many stars not only face the pressures of overscheduling and exhausting performances, but a social media and internet culture that can turn vicious at the slightest provocation. Casually Google the words “K-Pop” and “Suicide” and you fall into a rabbit hole of despair. A culture of sadness and desperation that sometimes reaches the level of contagion.
— Peacock streams the 2024 action comedy “The Fall Guy.”
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— “2024 Paris Paralympics Primetime: The Opening Ceremony and More” (9 p.m., NBC).
— In search of a rare winter crystal, a nature photographer is snowed in by love in the 2024 romance “Falling Like Snowflakes” (9 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
— Jamie takes on scammers who target the elderly on “Blue Bloods” (10 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
CULT CHOICE
A film that launched the career of star John Travolta and spawned a hit soundtrack that dominated the airwaves for years, the 1977 dance musical “Saturday Night Fever” (9 p.m., AXS) unfolds like a cultural or anthropological study of the cult of disco and its participants’ backgrounds as well as their use of the dance hall as a release from dead-end jobs and bleak prospects.
SERIES NOTES
“Let’s Make a Deal Primetime” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) … “America’s Got Talent” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG) … “WWE Friday Night SmackDown” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … “Jeopardy! Masters” (8 p.m., ABC, r, TV-PG) … “Lingo” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) … “20/20” (9 p.m., ABC, r).
LATE NIGHT
Alex Wagner and Ali Macofsky appear on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” (11:35 p.m., CBS, r) … Jimmy Fallon welcomes Michael Keaton, Taylor Tomlinson and Rhapsody on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC) … RuPaul guest hosts “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (11:35 p.m., ABC, r), featuring appearances by Maya Rudolph, Nymphia Wind, Sapphira Cristal, Plane Jane and Tommy Richman.
Channing Tatum and Sabrina Ionescu visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC) … Taylor Tomlinson hosts Joe Mantegna, Zach Gilford and Laci Mosley “After Midnight” (12:35 a.m., CBS, r).
