Late Night with the Devil: Heeeere’s Satan

The late-night talk show, Night Owls, is hosted by Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) and after years of chasing the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and the death of his wife, Jack decides to do a special show on October 31, 1977.  This is a last ditch effort to save his job and possibly finally climb in the ratings. The guests for the supernatural themed episode are Christou (Fayssal Bazzi) a famous medium and psychic; Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss) a former magician who now debunks supernatural hoaxes; Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) a noted parapsychologist and author; and Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) the subject of June’s book and a young girl supposedly possessed by a demon.  As the story progresses weird things start to happen, when June and Lilly are brought on, they are convinced to show the audience the demon living inside her.  The demonstration is debunked by Haig, but when Lilly rebuts his denials, all hell breaks loose…literally!

Late Night with the Devil is a “found footage” genre horror film, but with a twist, the found footage isn’t “shaky cam” it’s the missing episode that was professionally filmed and some backstage footage, so the overall production value feels more polished than other films in the same genre. The movie was written and directed by brothers Cameron and Colin Cairnes and was filmed mainly in Australia. David Dastmalchian was offered the part after reading a Fangoria magazine article he wrote about television horror hosts.  The film premiered at film festivals throughout 2023 and in October of that year IFC Films acquired the distribution rights for North America, the UK and Ireland.  The film was released to theaters on March 22, 2024.

I liked the premise of the movie and the execution of most of the film felt authentically 1970s which was both fun and nostalgic.  The production value is high for a “found footage” film with a mixture of practical and CGI special effects, animatronic puppetry and a few AI created images all adding to a pretty good looking movie.  The performances are all good with David Dastmalchian leading the charge wonderfully.  He is just smarmy enough to be a late-night talk show host, but there are subtle moments where his conscience shows and his tenderness for his wife that felt genuine and honest.  The plot is full of little breadcrumbs meant to lead the audience along that add nuances to the story without overburdening it with too much exposition. There were some good nods to other genre films as well with the mentioning of Amityville referencing the Amityville Horror franchise and  the Warrens of the Conjuring franchise, both of these are based on true events. Where I enjoyed the majority of the movie, there were some flaws, some of the early scenes drag on too long, there are some missed opportunities to incorporate earlier scenes into the end and the ending, itself I found overly confusing without really giving an explanation of what we were watching, especially since this is supposed to be what the television audience saw live.  This is definitely a case where the ending of the film taints the rest of the production.