Late Night With the Devil
A live broadcast of a late-night talk show in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation’s living rooms.
- Released: 2023-03-10
- Runtime: 86 minutes
- Genre: Horror, Thrillers
- Stars: Paula Arundell, Ian Bliss, David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Fayssal Bazzi, Christopher Kirby, Ingrid Torelli, Josh Quong Tart, Steve Mouzakis, Georgina Haig, Gaby Seow, Michael Ironside, Mitchell Brotz, Imaan Hadchiti, Elise Jansen, Tamala Shelton, John O'May, Clare Chihambakwe, Declan Fay, Caspian Dezfouli
- Director: Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes
Comments
- stinkyboi - 24 June 2024
Sabotages hard-earned trust and goodwill with an abrupt tonal shift
There's probably no other genre in filmmaking that is harder to finish out strong in the third act than horror. It is without a doubt among the highest forms of visual art to successfully pull off a satisfying horror movie. So many of them spend so much runtime building trust and goodwill with the viewer with great pacing, suspense, and tastefully done payoff sequences that heighten each time and build towards a grand finale, only to completely blow it in the third act right when it matters most. It's one of filmmaking's most difficult eggs to crack. The most common solutions are falling back on tired tropes that the audience already sees coming and expects to be subverted, going completely over the top with a grand finale like a bull in a china shop, coming up with contrived or gimmicky twists that aren't grounded in the story that break immersion and insult the viewer's intellect, or none of the above and it turns into a complete cluster of nonsense; enter Late Night With the Devil.
This movie was pulling off a lot of really interesting horror genre aesthetics and subgenres simultaneously for that first 70 minutes or so and it was genuinely working in an impressive way: late 70s period piece, exorcism/demon possession, ghost story, Halloween night, found footage, and perhaps most interestingly and in a way that glued everything together sensibly, the live talk show gone horribly wrong (Nope, The Joker, Alan Wake 2).
This movie trades heavily in the variety show format of this 70s late night talk show to pull off a lot of different sequences that normally would not be in the same movie. It's not just a clever twist or a subversion of expectations, it's just smart screenwriting. I thought this was just a really, really cool way to write a horror movie. Because it's a variety show where anything goes, you as the screenwriter almost have free rein to do whatever you want with it. Almost.
And so this screenwriter found himself in the third act with about 20 minutes of page to write to close out what has been really interesting and well done horror for the first hour or so. What happens next? Rather than continue with what was working (excellent makeup and practical FX to sell some really tense and creepy sequences, heightening circumstances building dread and tension towards the climax, logical story that doesn't get too high-concept while also convincingly pulling off some very supernatural elements), the script is more or less thrown out and a complete hodgepodge of terribly edited fast cut shots of what can only be described as "stuff happening", bad attempts at tying up the rest of the story that completely confuses everything that was still waiting to have its very manageable loose threads accounted for (this was a good script with a tight story that didn't have too much going on), awful low budget CG that is way, way over the top that completely sabotages all the great practical FX work that had been going on in the whole movie prior to now that was to be expected in the climax, and then a sudden abrupt end just to leave a bad taste in your mouth. This movie did not know how to end and essentially threw everything at the wall to see what stuck. Obviously nothing did.
No matter how well executed a horror movie can be, if the end is bad, if the end succumbs to the pitfalls of the genre, if the goodwill of the viewer is not respected with a good ending, the movie is a failure. This horror movie was a failure. It is really, really hard to satisfyingly finish out a horror movie. Late Night With the Devil is a case in point. - romulus - 12 June 2024
More a period piece than a horror film -- and it does very well at it
While billed as a horror film, which it does certainly have elements of, Late Night with the Devil is really a period piece, and a sendup of the paranormal mania of the 1970s, with clever and identifiable caricatures of many of the major figures in the psi, occult, and skeptic communities of that era and since. Dastmalchian channels a very well-honed Mike Douglas cum Dick Cavett vibe as he portrays an earnest-looking talk show host faced with serious stuff. The set design is perhaps the show stealer, with fine detail given not just to the decor of the studio, but a passing job at portraying era-appropriate insider technical details as well. The scares are both striking as well as mildly humorous, almost lampshade-hanging with its smirkingly semi-subtle use of tropes, likewise cropped from the iconic horror movie moments of the era it showcases.
Come for the horror, stay for the remarkably sincere portrayal of an era of psychics, skeptics, and late night showmanship. - MrDHWong - 6 June 2024
An effectively creepy experience that frightens the audience through atmosphere and characterisation
"Late Night with the Devil" is a horror film written and directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes. Starring David Dastmalchian in the lead role, it is an effectively creepy experience that frightens the audience through atmosphere and characterisation.
After retiring from the spotlight for sometime, late night talk show host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) decides to return for a specially-themed episode of his show "Night Owls with Jack Delroy" to be broadcast on Halloween, 1977. For years, Jack's show had struggled in the ratings behind "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson", and he hopes to use this reappearance as an opportunity to stage a much-needed comeback. Jack's guests on this episode include psychic Christou (Fayassal Bazzi), former magician turned skeptic Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss), parapsychologist June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon), and Lilly D'Abo (Ingrid Torelli), a young survivor of a mass cult suicide and June's latest subject. As the show continues throughout the night, various unexplainable and terrifying incidents start to occur that cause Jack to question whether his attempt to regain popularity is worth all this trouble.
Part of the large appeal of live television is the unpredictable nature of certain events that could take place at any given time. From a certain wardrobe malfunction in 2004 to an overreaction to a joke told at the 2022 Academy Awards, many of these unscripted moments have found themselves burnt into the memories of many TV viewers all over the world. One popular form of live TV where anything could happen is of course talk shows, where the nature of the featured guests can result in many mishaps at the expense of the host and the audience themselves. "Late Night with the Devil" is a film that works with a concept like this to create a successful horror movie that strings the viewer along until the very conclusion.
Setting itself up as a found footage documentary feature, the film transports its audience back to the 1970s, a decade rife with violence, economic instability, and a fear of occultism gripping America at that time. As a necessary form of distraction, television viewers turned their attention to various forms of light entertainment, in this case, late night talk shows. We are then shown that Jack Delroy, the charismatic, affable host of his programme "Night Owls with Jack Delroy", is one of the leading figures that viewers choose to watch for their fix of escapism, but he is constantly kept out of the top spot by the more popular Johnny Carson. Despite the odd spike in viewership, the final straw for Jack is the death of his wife Madeleine from cancer, which causes him to withdraw from public life. However, one day Jack suddenly decides to return to hosting his show for an occult-themed episode on Halloween, seemingly as his final ditch attempt to triumph in the ratings. It is then revealed that what we will be watching is in fact the previously lost master tape of this special, presented to us complete with behind the scenes footage detailing everything that went wrong on this fateful night.
As the broadcast begins, things seem normal enough for a Halloween-themed show, with Jack showing off his audience dressed in their monster costumes and his guests fulfilling the typical "spooky" quota of psychics and magicians. Where things become particularly interesting is when the spiritual medium Christou starts to react violently upon receiving a sinister premonition. This is then followed up with the introduction of the skeptic Carmichael Haig, who dismisses every apparent supernatural occurrence as nothing more than just part of the act. It is through Carmichael's constant attempts to disprove everything that the film has an efficient anchor in reality, which makes all of this bizarre otherworldliness much scarier than usual. You can chalk this up to Carmichael's increasing unease as even more evil events start to occur over time, which prove challenging to a veteran debunker like himself. Like how every good comedy act needs a straight man as a foil, every good horror story needs an unbeliever who requires convincing.
Making the most of the premise and setting, the Cairnes brothers are not only great at holding the audience's attention, but also at eliciting real scares whenever the situation calls for it. I often found myself intrigued at what was going to happen during a scene involving each of the guests interacting with one other. Without giving too much away, this led to several genuinely frightening moments that felt earned because the film had spent time building up to them. For instance, in one scene Jack plays news footage showing how June rescued Lilly from a Satanic cult, which then leads the audience to believe that the cult's influences still have control over Lilly. Naturally, Carmichael is not receptive towards the two female guests, regarding Lilly's claims of demonic possession as simply PTSD from being held captive for so long. At this point, it is clear that the Cairnes brothers want us to dislike Carmichael for his lack of empathy, but at the same time want him to keep provoking the pair further out of sheer curiosity. To my surprise, this strategy actually works in the film's favour, as when the audience becomes more curious, the following scary scenes are more fear-inducing as a result.
In addition to its appropriate pacing, the film also uses its 1970s aesthetic quite well too. I really enjoyed the way the film is presented to us as through it came from an old grainy VHS or Betamax tape you might find in a TV station camera, which helps immerse the viewer in that era of television. Even the film's colour scheme, comprised primarily of beige, red, yellow, and shades of orange, are crucial at establishing this particular decade as a pivotal time for television viewing across the country. To distinguish between what is being broadcast live and what isn't, the behind the scenes footage is shown to us in black-and-white, which is an important way of reminding the audience of what is actually a product of on-air sensationalism versus the real emotional moments taking place backstage. It's easy to feel invested in this stylised old footage from several decades ago, something that contributes significantly to the film's entertainment value.
As the lead character, David Dastmalchian is highly convincing as talk show host Jack Delroy, whose desperation to stay relevant has him resorting to more extreme measures than what is usually expected of him. It's fascinating to watch how Dastmalchian is able to efficiently mimic the way any talk show host would react in live and unscripted situations, especially while trying to remain an entertaining presence for his viewers at home. At his core, Jack is just a man who wants to keep his audience invested in him at all times, acting like he is in control despite the obvious chaos happening right before his eyes. In spite of this, as more information about his past is exposed, you can't help but feel as though he brought some of these problems on himself.
Ian Bliss is also worth mentioning as Carmichael Haig, whose skepticism proves catalytic towards the film's most notable scares. This is a man whose previous venture as a magician has allowed him to see hoaxes for their deceptive effect on other people, giving him the ability to expose frauds and become famous in the process. As mentioned earlier, Carmichael is an important character to this story, as without him the film would lack any rationality and become an incoherent mess of one supernatural event happening after another. Unfortunately I can't mention any more about Fayassal Bazzi as Christou, Laura Gordon as June, or Ingrid Torelli as Lilly without giving away spoilers so all I will say is that they are equally as important to the story as both Jack and Carmichael put together.
Rising above the usual supernatural possession horror flick, "Late Night with the Devil" may just be one of most effective films of its genre to be released in years. It finds ways to frighten people not through cheap jump scares but by building up tension through its unsettling atmosphere and unique character traits. My only real issue is that the ending seems somewhat underwhelming in comparison to everything else, but considering the excellent handling of the first and second acts, it doesn't bother me as much as it should. Regardless of that, I'm willing to admit this film was successful at scaring me where it counts.
I rate it 8/10.
