Movie Review: ‘Late Night with the Devil’
Directors: Colin and Cameron Cairnes
Cast: David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Fayssal Bazzi, Ingrid Torrelli, Rhys Auteri, Georgina Haig, Josh Quong Tart
Plot: Late night TV talk show host Jack Delroy is struggling to keep up the ratings, and starts to push more controversial topics. During the taping of one show he meddles with dark forces that are more dangerous that he anticipates.
Review: It’s always interesting when the weird online media trends start to bleed into full-length films that get cinema releases, if anything to see how it translates. We got desktop movies turned in Unfriended, and now the analog horror trend evolves into Late Night with the Devil. Don’t take this to mean that this is a big film with studio backing, it’s very much an indie film from Australia, which makes it all the more surprising to see a well known character actor like David Dastmalchian in the lead.
The movie begins with a documentary format, providing context for Jack Delroy, host of Night Owls with Jack Delroy (Dastmalchian, in a perfectly cast role). Between his charm, drive and connections with the wealthy and powerful, Jack’s star has been on the rise. When his beloved wife Madeleine (Haig) dies of cancer it has a noticeable impact on his performances and the ratings of his show begin to dip. In an effort to generate buzz, he plans a Halloween special exploring the occult. On the ticket is the celebrity psychic Christou (Bazzi), magician and outspoken sceptic Carmichael (Bliss) and a the survivor of a Satanic cult mass suicide names Lilly (Torelli) along with her parapsychologist minder June (Gordon).
The show starts off smoothly and they hit the expected beats. Jack riffs with his sidekick Gus (Auteri) and banters with the audience. Christou goes through his routine of cold and hot reading the audience to ‘connect them’ with their lost loved ones. Next, the smug and disrespectful Carmichael goes through the process of debunking him. During this time a few things seem out of place, including the lights dipping and ominous times and, well, Christou beginning to projectile vomit black bile. The real turning point is the introduction of Lilly, who is said to be possessed by a demon, and Carmichael’s attempts to debunk what is happening. As Jack pushes ahead with the segment in spite of June’s warnings, and things continue to get darker and more terrifying.
We’re loving the format and set-up for this film. The entire premise is intriguing, and is the reason we sought this movie out even before we knew Dastmalchian was involved. He’s beyond perfect for this part, and we feel that he has helped to elevate the entire cast of less experienced performers who are having to adopt American accents for the film. For an indie film, the entire production has done an amazing job making this a convincing and effective experience. The recreation of this era of television, right down to the archetypes of the celebrity psychic and magician of the era.
What sees the realism get shaky is when we switch to the black and white segments. The conceit is that we’re watching the master tape of the original recording, and whenever they cut to commercial we switch to a traditional cinematic approach to follow discussions between Jack and his slimy producer Leo (Tart) as they try to get control of the situation. It’s a tricky aspect of the narrative to include, but unfortunately the chosen approach shakes out immersion in the experience. This level of realism, watching a lost recording, is one of the best features of the film so this leaves some noticeable cracks. There’s also some unnecessary plot threads, specifically The Grove aspect of Jack’s story, that could be cult without changing much.
There’s also the matter of the use of AI in this film, that some viewers and commentators have taken issue with. To our understanding, AI generators were used to create the station IDs and title cards. I believe that a key thing to remember is that this an indie production and they may be trying to stretch every cent as far as possible. The hope is that if the film-makers start working with bigger budgets off the back of this, they need to start giving that money to an artist to create this work.
Whether you’re a fan or horror and analog films or not, this is a really fun, creepy experience. It shows a few too many cards early, but the cast of characters manage to keep it ticking along. Solid work.
Rating: SEVEN out of TEN
