Late Night with the Devil Review: Devilish Genre Fun

Ken Jones, OnScreen Blog Chief Film Critic

It is refreshing when you come across an inventive horror film. Late Night with the Devil is one such film by relative unknowns from Australia, including brothers Colin and Cameron Cairnes. It blends a few genres and faithfully recreates a classic TV period to create a chilling mix of supernatural horror.

Set in 1977, a late-night talk show hosted by Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) airs its live Halloween episode featuring a series of spooky guests emphasizing the occult. Jack’s show, while once popular, is beginning to sag in ratings behind Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, and the Halloween episode is an attempt to boost ratings during sweeps week.

His guests include a psychic named Christau (Fayssal Bazzi), a magician-turned-skeptic Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss), and parapsychologist Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon), who has worked for three years with a possessed teenager named Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) who is the sole survivor of Satanic cult that committed mass suicide. Blending the recorded footage of the broadcast with behind-the-scenes video, the supernatural threat ratchets up as the show progresses, all in the name of ratings.

The film is presented in a documentary format with some found footage blended in to show what happens during the show’s commercial breaks. The film’s opening is a montage documenting the history of the show and Jack’s rise, plateau, and slow fall in late-night popularity.

It also notes two important aspects of Jack’s personal life. The first is his relationship with his wife Madeline (Georgina Haig) and her eventual, surprising diagnosis of and eventual death from lung cancer. The other is that the opening lays out some breadcrumbs to Jack’s ties to a private, secretive California men’s club called The Bohemian Grove (an actual, real-life organization), with secret society conspiracy theory elements.

The film does an excellent job recreating the look and feel of a late 70s variety late-night talk show, from the set design, hair and makeup, and costumes to the 4:3 TV framing. The late-night talk show format, with built-in show segments, blended with the supernatural, allows events to escalate naturally and yields some enjoyable horror thrills. They use broadcast footage to great effect, with some old-school practical effects that mess with the viewer and the perception of reality.

Also, the time period in which the film is placed works very well, as there was an air back then pushing the boundaries with live, late-night television. TV ratings also play an important role in the story, and the need to push boundaries to get eyeballs on your product resonates, whether in 1977 or 2024; it’s just a different medium here. It’s also never overdone or overtly stated.

Setting the film in 1977 also works well because it places it in a time period after films like Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976). There was an increasing pop culture fascination with the occult. Jack’s interest, partly due to ratings, also has a naivete to it; he cavalierly deals with subject matter beyond his control and doesn’t fully understand. It’s easy to see fictional events like the ones found on this late-night talk show leading to the satanic panic of the 80s.

David Dastmalchian is a character actor who most people probably know more by his face than his name. This is the first lead role I have seen him in, and he gives an impeccable performance, note-perfect as a talk show host, capturing the showmanship of a talk show host and the behind-the-scenes steering of the ship. I enjoyed his sidekick Gus (Rhys Auteri) too. Ingrid Torelli also gives a noteworthy performance as Lilly. While the possession scenes are intense, Lilly's unnatural calm demeanor and stares at the cameras stand out in her performance.

The film’s finale goes a little overboard, and mileage on that may vary for some, but on the whole, Late Night with the Devil uses all of its elements to create a unique supernatural horror film. It is a low-budget, high-quality success that is devilish genre fun.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars