Late Night with the Devil (2023)


I didn't get to watch much of Johnny Carson in the 1970s.  I probably would not have understood most of it anyway.  VCRs were not yet a thing so, unless a kid could get away with watching TV without drawing the attention of their parents, it just wasn't happening.  

I was, on the other hand, able to catch Merv Griffin quite often.  That was one of the first thoughts that came to mind when seeing the set of Night Owls with Jack Delroy, the fictional late-night television show that Late Night with the Devil purports to be a lost episode of.  Co-directors and writers Cameron and Colin Cairnes spent quite a lot of time trying to make the show look as authentic as possible, not going for the comic exaggerations of '70s fashions and color tones but instead going for something one would recognize if they grew up at the time.  It's a great concept for a horror film, but it's too bad that it unravels at the end.

Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) is a late-night host who has been a distant second to The Tonight Show for years.  Fearing that his program is about to be cancelled due to declining ratings he begins sweeps week, which happens to start on October 31, 1977, with a lineup that includes a popular psychic named Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), a debunker of such psychics named Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss) and a young girl named Lilly (Ingrid Torelli).  Lilly is the survivor of a Satanic cult run by a man named Szandor D'Abo (Steve Mouzakis) and is supposedly possessed by a demon called Abraxas, whom she calls Mr. Wriggles.  Lilly is accompanied by her guardian, parapsychologist June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon), who has written a book about her.

The evening begins as normal.  However, Christou, while doing his cold reading routine, is suddenly contacted by Delroy's late wife Madeleine (Georgina Haig).  The contact leads to Christou leaving the show early and under mockery from Carmichael, who is offering a substantial reward for anyone who can prove beyond a doubt that their psychic claims are real.  They get just that in Lilly, despite Carmichael's claims to the contrary when he does a mass hypnosis demonstration on bandleader Gus (Rhys Auteri).  It doesn't take long for Delroy to get more of a show than he bargained for. 

I love the main idea of showing what was a shelved live broadcast of a vintage talk show.  It's shown in the right format and, though filmed digitally, has a bit of fuzz added to give it that older feel, but not so much to make it unwatchable as many would find the television picture quality from that time to be.  The beginning presents the show as documentary footage, which begins to break down when we see, in black and white, what is happening during the commercial breaks.  If this was supposed to be archive footage it should have been in eight- or 16-millimeter film, not obvious clear modern filming. 

Still, the Cairnes brothers do a great job of building up the tension despite the fact that there is only one way this is going to turn out.  Carmichael is an obvious stand-in for the Amazing Randi, a magician turned skeptic and debunker who offered money if anyone could prove their psychic abilities and, of course, never had to pay out.  Szandor D'Abo is a take on Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, although the latter was more of a carnival showman than an incarnation of evil.  Everyone does a great job of staying in character, and Ingrid Torelli is creepy from the beginning.

If the movie had just stayed with its central conceit it would have succeeded, but the Cairneses couldn't resist hopping off the documentary and presenting the things that Delroy supposedly experienced during the events that unfolded.  We see those in a more traditional theatrical aspect, and it's a jumble of thoughts that is supposed to symbolize what he has sacrificed for fame, both figuratively and literally.  It doesn't work as suddenly the audience is thrust into a traditional horror film instead of the neat period piece it was.  

Late Night with the Devil (2023)
Time: 93 minutes
Starring: David Dastmalchian, Ian Bliss, Laura Gordon, Ingrid Torelli, Georgina Haig
Directors: Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes

 

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