One Star Classics : Late Night with the Devil

Late Night with the Devil

Oct 03, 2024 / Devilish

So, first, let’s address the elephant in the room: Late Night with the Devil uses a couple of semi-AI-generated pieces of graphics. The directors have acknowledged as much, and I say semi in the sense that actual human beings worked on the images after they were generated. I’m not a fan of the GenAI stuff—it does stand out as such—but I also don’t think its inclusion takes away from the movie. More importantly, the directors have, by all measures, emphatically promised to go the human route next time.

I lead with this because the film got review bombed on Letterboxd—and presumably elsewhere—which it does not deserve. Late Night with the Devil ranks amongst the best movies of the year, and one faux pas should not detract from that.

The film then. Set on Halloween 1977, Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) makes one last attempt to make his talk show a ratings juggernaut after it has gradually slipped in the polls over the past years. The evening’s guests include psychic Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), psychic-turned-skeptic Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss), and, most notably, cult suicide survivor teen Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) and her caretaker, Madeleine (Georgina Haig). As things start devolving from camp to disturbing, dark revelations are revealed, and the question arises: How far has Jack gone to achieve stardom?

Overall, it’s a fairly well-trod territory—see movies like The Cleansing Hour—but Late Night with the Devil elevates both presentation and execution to another level. The set design is immaculately of the period, as is the tone and humor of Jack’s Night Owls. Take away the occult and behind the scenes footage, and I could be fooled into thinking we were watching an actual 1970s TV program.

Too, the acting is top-notch. David Dastmalchian’s Jack is charismatic, funny, likable… yet someone fully capable of selling his—or someone else’s—soul to reach the success he feels he deserves. On the flip side, we have Ian Bliss’s Carmichael, a boastful Orson Wells-type character who is ready to sign a sizable cheque to anyone who can prove the paranormal is real. (Up until now, his bank account has not taken a hit.) It’s hard not to get caught up in the pair’s (sometimes strained) banter.

And Lilly? That she turns from a sweet innocent into something much darker should surprise no one. If that is what actually happens.

A possessed girl — I’d believe this was a screen capture from a genuine seventies TV show.

It’s the full package, Late Night with the Devil. Well-acted, well-shot; funny, and vaguely surreal—a strong contender for becoming a midnight-movie classic in the coming years.

By Remi, Oct 03, 2024