Late Night with the Devil

The poster sold me.  But, could anything live up to it?

Oh yeah.  Writers/directors Colin and Cameron Cairnes have made what is easily the best contemporary horror film I've seen in some time.  A great premise that actually delivers on its potential, even if the final fifteen minutes or so, while vivid, seem to violate viewers' engagement and ultimate trust.  Odd thing, though I guess that was kinda the point?

1977.  Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) hosts the #2 late night TV talk show.   For five years he has trailed Johnny Carson in the ratings, a situation not helped by a hiatus due to his wife's death from cancer.  His hoped for comeback is a Halloween episode with an occult theme.  Guests are to include a psychic, a magician, and a parapsychologist and her subject, a demon possessed teenager. 

Christou (Fayssal Bazzi) is like one of those mediums you still see on cable.   Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss) is like The Amazing Randi - a specialist with sleight of hand parlor tricks and an outspoken skeptic against the paranormal.  June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) is the parapsych who brings along Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), the only survivor of a suicide pact of a devil worshipping cult.  All provide fireworks to Night Owls with Jack Delroy in varying degrees.  During commercial breaks, the Cairnes take us backstage with scenes shot in black and white.  So-called "found footage", used commonly in many crummy horror films of late.

But here, it works almost as well as the show itself.  2023's LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL is a crackling hour and a half, a real time document of a live event that does go horribly wrong.   How wrong I will not disclose, though it becomes apparent fairly early on how this show will end.  And that's one potential beef I have.  During the otherwise excellent prologue we learn something about Delroy that telegraphs the finale, and is, in my opinion, an entirely unnecessary plot thread.  Too literal, you might say.

Faustian bargain? Pretty easy to discern here. 

The aesthetics are nearly perfect.  The drab art direction of the era is spot on.  The mimicking of a real late night show is likewise. There's been controversy a' plenty over three images (used as stills for commercial breaks) created with AI.  Enough for some viewers to give the movie wholesale dismissal.  Foolish.  Now, I understand the concern, and share their bafflement as to why the filmmakers didn't just hire someone to create the modest artwork.  The directors cite cost concerns. 

Dastmalchian nails the role; I hope he gets some attention for it.  The Cairnes skillfully tighten the vise as the film progresses.  The tension is nearly unbearable.   There are also plenty of laughs, mainly from Bliss' character.   But when he attempts to debunk all the mysticism around him - with Jack's sidekick Gus (Rhys Auteri) as his subject - the film does go a bit off the rails.  Gets a little too heady for its own good.  Kinda feels like a cheat, or the filmmakers changing their own rules and maybe contradicting their very premise.   Still, it is a great sequence. 

What follows it has been problematic for some viewers and may not have been the best way to wrap things up (I might've opted for more of the psychological approach it attempts) but it too is eye filling and memorable.