Late Night with the Devil (2023) [Movie review]

Late Night with the Devil is an indie feature film riding the analog horror subgenre into theaters this March. However, does it manage to add anything new to the mix? For those that haven’t watched Local 58 or Gemini Home Entertainment, this will be a new experience for them. Now, there will be some that might call this faux found footage or faux lost media. However, the narrative doesn’t naturally fit those monikers that well. This film is an attempt to use fictional archival footage to recreate a later look at a fictional attack that happened on Halloween Night in 1977.

David Dastmalchian is suddenly everywhere

I remember a time when Dastmalchian was a deep cut genre actor. Now, he’s appearing in almost everything I like to watch. When he first appears in Late Night with the Devil, he slides into the role of Jack Delroy like he’s been playing him for years. That comfortable smirk and familiarity with the late night routine presents the host as a blend between Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett and even a little bit of Carson. Jack is likable and you buy a world where he’s enjoyed enough to be famous, but not enough to be a megastar.

When we get thrown into the world of Late Night with the Devil, we have an unseen narrator giving us what felt like an eternity of backstory to properly set up the film. That was my first tip-off that something was wrong. I get that the budget was only two million dollars, but unless it’s the soothing sounds of John Larroquette…you got about 24 seconds of that opening narration before I tune out.

During said narration, you’re supposed to learn what got Dastmalchian’s Jack Delroy to the position he is at and the struggles he’s been facing in the last year. When they show and let you feel Dastmalchian’s desperation and sadness, that is great. However, spoonfeeding it to the audience makes the shortcomings of other characters stand out more and more as you go deeper into the film.

Satanic Panic and You

What is Satanic Panic? Well, it was a cultural movement that seemed to have its ties in 1968 during the rise of Nixon into the White House and Rosemary’s Baby dominating cinema screens. While Rosemary’s Baby was the best selling horror novel of the 1960s, it didn’t hit the zeitgeist peak until Roman Polanski put Mia Farrow on film. From there, the world started getting Satanic discovery books and other tales of unknown psychos roaming the landscape for Satanic sacrifices. Then, The Exorcist hit like an atom bomb in 1973.

Everything in Western fiction that followed owes a debt to Friedkin and Blatty’s work. Even if other creators didn’t care for The Exorcist and all of its trappings, sometimes a creative work breaks brains in a way that never goes back to normal. Don’t believe me? Watch anything prior to 1973 about demonic possession. Don’t just stick to American visual displays, go around the world to find an example. Then watch anything that came out after The Exorcist. It’s rare, but it happens. Sometimes you can make a visual representation of something that defines what that subject is forever.

Yes, The Exorcist really got Middle America obsessed with the Devil for a bit

If it weren’t for Star Wars in 1977, we would probably have a healthy lineage of American possession and Demon Attack movies. I really don’t think modern audiences understand how incredibly popular those movies were for half a decade. Late Night with the Devil has those trappings all over. The Abraxas Cult figures are all dressed up similar to Ernest Borgnine in The Brotherhood of Satan. Ingrid Torelli’s Lilly is bound with restraints similar to Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Even Ian Bliss’s Carmichael comes across as a blend of Carl Kolchak and perennial 70s talk show guest/skeptic/magic subject matter expert Orson Welles.

When you blend the familiar, you get to hit on those cultural cues designed to entice an audience back into the world they remember or experience by proxy via an older generation. But, that doesn’t matter for the young. I don’t want to be another older viewer bemoaning the youthful viewer, but you can almost always put them into two buckets.

There are the young people that want to find fault. Then, there are the young viewers that find a new thing to make their personality. Those two buckets held strong for ages, but with something like “Late Night with the Devil”, it makes you wonder how younger audiences will broach the subject. Even with the TikTok creators trying to pass this off as a real event in their videos.

Bohemian Grove….this isn’t

Stop me if you have heard this one before. A secret story about rich weirdos and politicians in Animal Masks praising Moloch or Satan in the woods of a secluded area and someone has the inside scoop. An underlying plot point in Late Night with the Devil is Jack Delroy visiting The Groves for some sort of bigwig advancement. Given the trappings of the film and the description that Michael Ironside narrates, it’s easy to infer that it’s Satanic in nature. So, that’s why when that stalls out and they bring in the Cult of Abraxas plot and Lilly, it feels like we’re getting a sampler platter of 70s Satanic panic horror getting stacked on top of each other.

So, let’s examine what Late Night with the Devil asks you to follow during its duration

• An opening narration that sets up the Analog Horror/Found Footage nature of the presentation
• A lengthy bit of exposition setting up Satanic Panic and Supernatural Cult ties to Dastmalchian’s characters
• A look at an ongoing stage feud between a prominent Magician and professional skeptic Carmichael evoking many Welles and related appearances on magic and supernatural talk show bits.
• A bit of background on the Cult of Abraxas who worships Satan and was breeding women to create human sacrifices to their Infernal Master.
• Then one of the teen girls being used as a vessel for that Satanic spirit to take over a late night broadcast.

To avoid spoilers, I’ll stop there. But doesn’t that already sound stuffed to the brim? Well, you don’t notice past the overdrawn opening narration and the sudden revelations in the finale. If you would have told me that there was a missing reel right before the final 15 minutes of the film, I would not be surprised.

You have 6 characters and a bunch of human props

That was the thought that hit me when Last Night with the Devil ended. Who did anything worthwhile in the film that wasn’t the show host, his guests or bandleader? I get that the stage manager character existed as this Brundlefly creation of Brad Dourif and Paul Williams, but even he was more of a walk-on player. The audience doesn’t play into the presentation and even a stage manager with a few lines might as well be a featured extra.

The focus of Late Night with the Devil is tightly on the immediate crew and show guests. While that would have been more than enough to hold an audience, it keeps throwing new plot after new plot into the mix, while trying to rope it back to our central figure. Some of it pays off, but most of it lands with the subtle touch of a later Tales from the Crypt episode. Not complaining, it’s just very jarring.

What is it about the ending that still bothers me?

I’m a big fan of these types of movies. Hell, I was the one of the first people to hunt down a copy of the WNUF sequel. What I noticed about the ending of this movie was the same problem I had with the WNUF sequel. Actually, it was much worse for the WNUF sequel since you had the original film to compare it against. I have yet to full review that film due to discussing it with others and wanting to be fair. However, Late Night with the Devil stands apart from why I didn’t love that other film.

I buy the atmosphere of Late Night with the Devil, I believe in the characters and I buy the central threat. But, that’s the keyword “central”. The overstuffed extra trappings in the film doesn’t support Jack’s descent so much as it takes away from why we all got hooked by in the trailer. Poor possessed Lilly is the threat and what brought her to the show.

Having a Scooby Doo by way of EC Comics ending where everything is tied together and we get sudden harsh and tonally off reasons for why the show continues feels so brutally unearned and suggesting of heavy edits that I beg someone to let me read an earlier draft of the script. Was there more of the film that didn’t make it? I feel like these giant jumps in the narrative structure had to have stood out to anyone.

Horror as a Narrative Form

The best American Stories are told in Horror. Fight me on it and I will win. I don’t care what century, era or conceit. For a film shot in Australia with UAE financing, Late Night with the Devil is very American horror tale. It captures everything right about the 70s from the TV obsession to the never-ending feature of supernatural forces to the constant desire to parade the unknown for a buck. While the reveal feels a little too Paddy Chayefsky’s dumber nephew Horton getting rewrite duties, the tone is so amazing and pinned down with ferocity.

Aesthetic vs. Function

The aesthetic value of Late Night with the Devil is off the damn charts. However, the more you probe it, the more the functional failings become apparent. From the weird split screen of 4:3 screen formats to the choices to break narrative into larger screen formats for behind the scenes and the finale, it breaks the validity of Halloween 1977 everytime. Much like the incident with the worm in the eye, Late Night with the Devil wants to play a ton with what you see. But, it never feels like it has a point to the narrative beyond looking cool for 1977.

Will Late Night with the Devil find an audience?

Late Night with the Devil will find an audience. In fact, it will be streaming on Shudder shortly in April. But, will it find an audience? Divorced from the Film Twitter arguments that started emerging while I worked on this review, I feel the film will live on streaming and home video. Why? Well, because it’s almost impossible to enjoy anything in a feedback loop. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of Late Night with the Devil, I’ll be watching it multiple times before 2024 ends.

That’s not a yay or nay towards any feelings I have on the film. However, I am far more fascinated by the movies that cast doubt for me rather than the outright pans or insane fan favorites. Genre entertainment was built on the backs of movies that were OK to Good, but grew with repeat viewings. This is one such film and I would recommend checking it out in theaters and streaming it on Shudder later in April.

Late Night with the Devil is in theaters on March 22nd. Streaming on Shudder April 19th.