Late Night with the Devil (2024)
dir. Colin & Cameron Cairnes
Rated: R
image: ©2024 IFC Films
If you’ve seen Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, there’s no way you don’t recognize actor David Dastmalchian, who appeared briefly (but ever so memorably) as Thomas Schiff, the unhinged acolyte of Heath Ledger’s Joker. Dastmalchian is a supremely talented “that guy” character actor.
Even if you don’t know him by name, you probably know his face from his turns in the MCU Ant-Man movies, or in the work of Denis Villeneuve, most recently in the first of the director’s Dune adaptations. He even appeared in a small but pivotal role in Nolan’s 2023 Oscar Best Picture winner Oppenheimer.
As good as Dastmalchian is – and he is certainly that in Late Night with the Devil, the intense horror movie from Aussie sibling directing team Colin and Cameron Cairnes – it’s an odd choice to cast such a recognizable actor in the lead role. That’s because the movie purports to be an assemblage of found footage from a 1977 Halloween television broadcast.
The magic contained within the rich history of the found footage subgenre, which includes 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust, the Paranormal Activity series, as well as the runaway hit The Blair Witch Project, depends on the filmmakers presenting something that might have actually happened. That’s harder to do when you look up at the screen and immediately think, “Hey, it’s Polka-Dot Man from The Suicide Squad!”
In Late Night with the Devil, Dastmalchian plays Jack Delroy, host of the syndicated talk show Night Owls. According to the movie, at the height of his power, Delroy went toe-to-toe with Johnny Carson in the late-night ratings wars. In the opening minutes voice-over of Late Night, we’re told that as close as he came to challenging Carson’s dominance, Delroy always came up short, causing whispers of “also-ran” within the industry that he so desperately wanted to rule. Over the course of the movie, we discover the lengths to which Delroy went in pursuit of fortune and glory.
The introductory segment of the Cairnes brothers’ picture is structured like a documentary, giving the audience a primer on the chaotic crises afflicting mid-to-late 1970s U.S. society. The grim voiceover – provided by Michael Ironside, another great “that guy” character actor – serves up the Watergate scandal, the Vietnam War, and the general sense of malaise of the period. Delroy harnesses the excitement and unpredictability of live TV in these uncertain times to skew more Jerry Springer in his pursuit of sensationalist ratings gold, but ultimately to no avail.
Delroy disappears from the airwaves in the aftermath of his wife, Madeleine, suddenly developing and dying from lung cancer, despite never having smoked. The host attempts a comeback when he invites parapsychologist and author Dr. June Ross-Mitchell as a guest on the occult-themed Halloween episode of his show.
Ross-Mitchell has in her care Lilly, a preteen girl who is the sole survivor of a mass suicide involving a Satanic church whose members worshipped a demon named Abraxas. Also appearing on the spooky episode is a psychic named Christou as well Carmichael the Conjurer, a former magician who is now a skeptic and debunker of paranormal claims.
The moments that really shine in Late Night with the Devil all come while Delroy and his guests are live on the air. The scene in which Dr. Ross-Mitchell coaxes the demon that she says has inhabited Lilly’s body – whom Lilly calls “Mr. Wriggles” – into making an appearance is unsettling. The young actress playing Lilly, Ingrid Torelli, keeps the creep-out vibe high any time she’s prominent within the story. There is also a sequence in which Carmichael, in an attempt to demonstrate how Lilly’s paranormal performance can be faked, hypnotizes Delroy’s hapless sidekick Gus. It involves some brilliantly disgusting effects involving worms. One particularly creepy effect, which is achieved with a brilliant use of CGI, is as simple as a character’s eyes rolling completely back in his head. Then there’s the absolutely bonkers climax of the movie in which all hell breaks loose.
The execution of Late Night faulters any time Night Owls cuts to commercial break. During these breaks, the cinematography switches to black-and-white as a behind-the-scenes camera (we’re never told who was shooting this footage, or, frankly, why) follows Delroy around as his producer, Leo Fiske, updates him on efforts to get big money players to back the late-night star’s attempted return to stardom.
Each time this behind-the-scenes camera – which always happens to be in the exact right place at the exact right time and is never noticed by the people under its gaze – is employed, it shatters the illusion that what we’re seeing actually happened. (To be fair, Delroy’s network’s fictional call letters also break the spell, which speaks to the rather lazy attempt at the film’s found footage premise.)
If you’re interested in a project that is whole-heartedly committed to the bit, please do yourself a favor and seek out the 2013 curio titled WNUF Halloween Special. That film uses a small, local network affiliate newscast to give it a sense of authenticity and the filmmakers even painstakingly created dozens of ads to brilliantly evoke the movie’s 1987 setting.
The Cairnes brothers overplay their hand when it comes to small details like the reactions of the live studio audience. The “oohs” and “ahhs” and other excited interjections from the crowd consistently feel a little too orchestrated to be believable. The same goes for the directing duo’s inclusion of the well-worn trope of the Ed McMahon-like sidekick who everyone treats like shit. There are two or three too many cuts to poor Gus with a pained look on his face for it to feel real.
(Although, one of the movie’s biggest laughs comes when Gus announces to the audience that their favorite talk show sidekick has triumphantly returned at the end of the commercial break, only to be met with their overwhelming uninterest.)
For his part, Dastmalchian acquits himself well in his first leading role. His behavior both in front of and behind the TV cameras as Delroy makes his character seem like an old hand at the late-night talk show grind. I will admit, though, that I missed the unhinged edge he brought to his performance in The Dark Knight. That’s the fault of my expectations, not a rebuke of Dastmalchian’s skills as an actor.
As a fan of ‘70s and ‘80s satanic panic lore and real-life skeptics of the supernatural, I appreciated the Cairnes brothers’ nods to these subjects. Lilly and her doctor are evocative of the sensational (and long since discredited) 1980 book Michelle Remembers, in which a therapist claimed to have used hypnotherapy to uncover memories in one of his adult patients (who later became his wife!) of ritualistic satanic abuse she suffered at five years old.
Carmichael the Conjurer is reminiscent of magician-turned-skeptic James Randi, a.k.a. The Amazing Randi. Like Carmichael, Randi offered a substantial cash reward for verifiable and reproduceable evidence of the supernatural (which, notably, he never had to pay out) until his 2020 death.
The film uses a clever mix of practical and CGI effects to shock and disturb its audience. The Cairnes brothers judiciously dole out the scares until they unleash all hell for the wild climax. Late Night with the Devil is a spooky good time as long as you can overlook its shortcomings in the execution of its found footage premise.
Why it got 3.5 stars:
- Late Night with the Devil is a good and spooky time, but the execution ultimately lets the movie down. Obviously anything marked “found footage” is likely not anything of the kind, but you have to at least put a little effort into it. The inventive effects, both practical and CGI, make for a memorable viewing experience.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- There has been much ado made about the directors using AI for three interstitial commercial bumper images used in the movie. I won’t go into too much detail. If you’re interested in learning more, you can find that here. The people who railed against the movie (some calling for a boycott) have a point that any art created with AI is work that could have been done by a human, effectively cutting off income from people who likely really need it. I’m sure the same was said about CGI when studios began using it. I strongly believe we need to set our sights much higher. We need to transcend capitalism so that people don’t depend on a job for the necessities of life like food, shelter, and health care. Then, it won’t matter how much AI artists use. We live in a post-scarcity world (when scarcity isn’t artificially imposed by the owner class to make more money for themselves), so we can do this, if it’s important to us.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
- I saw this on a late Friday afternoon at the Cedars Alamo. There were a handful of other people in the theater. Late Night with the Devil is currently playing in wide theatrical release and will be available to stream beginning April 19th exclusively on the streaming service Shudder.
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The FFC’s political soapbox
More insanity coming out of my home state of Texas. A leaked video of a GOP meeting in Granbury is shocking, but sadly not surprising. In the video, the speaker endorses the death penalty not only for doctors performing abortions, but also for the women getting abortions. That includes pregnancies that are the result of rape and/or incest. If you think this is a problem only for Texans, think again. This is what the Republican party (especially those in the MAGA cult) want for the whole country. To read more about the leaked video, and to see the video itself, click here.