"Knock 'em dead, Mister Midnite"! Let's Talk About 'Late Night With The Devil'

 

"Weaving spiders come not here..."

(This review is filled with spoilers. Proceed with caution.)

2023's Late Night With The Devil, a found footage horror film directed by brothers Cameron and Colin Cairnes, starring David Dastmalchian, Ian Bliss, Laura Gordon, Ingrid Torelli Georgina Haig, Fayssal Bazzi and Rhys Auteri, was released to critical acclaim and box office success earlier this year, finally premiering on SHUDDER and AMC+ only several weeks ago, on April 19th. People love this movie. You'd be hard pressed to find anybody who doesn't think Late Night With The Devil is a shining example of how modern horror is in excellent hands. 

So what is it about Late Night that I’ve come to dislike so much? That’s a tough question to answer. For starters, it's an unfair question. I don't particularly dislike the movie. I posted a brief reaction on our Threads account after first watching Late Night that was really just one of my many, many poor attempts at humor. One of my followers in particular wanted to know why the movie didn't work for me, and because I am a special kind of stupid, my earnest attempt to simply explain my opinions regarding the movie spiraled out of control into whatever this blog post has become. So here you go, @erictrieshorror, I hope you're happy. And I'm sorry.

Late Night With The Devil is certainly a well-made movie. The concept is great, and I’m a sucker for found footage movies. Although this movie is really more an example of what I call a “fictional cultural artifact”. It’s not really “found” footage, but a complete commercial product that exists within an imaginary universe.

WNUF Halloween Special, directed by Chris LaMartina, James Branscome and Shawn Jones, is a prime example of this: a vintage televised broadcast rediscovered for modern viewers, filled with lovely nostalgic touches that color in the margins of the overall story, complete with a series of pitch-perfect advertisements for made-up products that you're going to wish were real by the time you've finished watching. 

Ghostwatch, directed by Lesley Manning, is another fascinating case, distinctive due to being a contemporary story, a supposed “live Halloween broadcast” on BBC in 1992 that caused a real life furor among viewers convinced they were watching a genuine paranormal event. WNUF is hardly obscure, but Ghostwatch still flies under the radar for a lot of horror fans, which is unfortunate, since it’s really a lot of fun. If you're interested in seeing the minds behind Ghostwatch discussing a few stories behind the making of their project, you can click here to watch a brief Q & A courtesy of BFI.

Both titles make for wonderful Halloween viewing. 

Late Night With The Devil presents us with the story of a well known 1970s late night talk show called Night Owls hosted by Jack Delroy on the fictional UBC network. He styles himself as a rival for Johnny Carson’s late night throne, but for whatever reason, Night Owls never manages to become more than an also-ran at best. On Halloween night, 1977, with plummeting ratings, a desperate Delroy organizes a very special episode of his show that he hopes will save Night Owls and his hopes for superstardom. The stakes are high, so he books a very special guest: a young woman who was rescued from a destructive satanic cult and is seemingly possessed by a demonic spirit. Delroy hopes to commune with that spirit live on the air, to interview a demon from hell on Halloween night. Who wouldn’t tune in to see that?

But that’s not enough for Late Night, a movie that chooses to over-complicate its own very simple plot with a host of seemingly extraneous elements that may not serve to enrich the narrative. Your mileage, of course, may vary. Delroy also happens to be involved in a secret society (another goddamned cult) called “The Grove” that presents itself as a kind of harmless retreat for the rich and famous… but we know that’s not the whole truth. This is a horror movie, lest we forget. Delroy also, also had an adoring actress wife named Madeline who tragically passed away a year prior of lung cancer, despite being a non-smoker. So do you think that sounds a little suspicious, or is it just me? I’m sure it’s nothing. Delroy also, also, also appears to be involved with Dr. June Ross-Mitchell, the parapsychologist who is treating the young girl, Lilly, who may or may not be possessed by the demon king Abraxas. Not to be confused with Abraxas, Guardian Of The Universe, the space cop played by Jesse “the body” Ventura in the 1990 sci-fi action schlock misfire of the same name. That’s a totally different dude.

All hail Abraxas!

I ask you: is all of that other story fluff strictly necessary? Does it enrich the main plot? I’m not saying none of this should have been included, obviously. I’m just saying I don’t feel like all of these elements as presented do the movie any favors. It's all so heavy handed and obvious in the narrative. Why is Delroy involved in this cult for the idle rich? Why does that matter? Why does it have to tie into the centerpiece of the film, being the ultimate confrontation with the demon inhabiting Lilly? Did Jack have to engage in a Faustian bargain with a sinister secret society in exchange for fame and fortune? Call it a puzzle, I guess, and all the pieces need to fit neatly together in the end, however clumsily.

But let’s examine this for a moment.

The subplot about Madeline’s tragic death is ultimately worthwhile. It gives Delroy incentive to become adrift in his life without her to keep him grounded. Maybe he throws himself into his work because he doesn’t want to have to take stock of his life in a quiet moment and truly come to terms with her loss. Night Owls courts controversy more and more in the year after her untimely death, sort of a prototypical Jerry Springer or Geraldo Rivera show as he seeks ratings dominance over all else. His scruples go out the window as he pursues a “harmless” dalliance with the woman in charge of Lilly’s treatment, working not-so-subtly to convince June to goad this disturbing “Mr. Wriggles” entity out of hiding within Lilly’s mind live on the air to boost Night Owls’ Nielsen share. Fine stuff.

But “The Grove”? Nah. “But it’s based on an actual secret society involving many well known celebrities and politicians and” blah, blah, blah. I know all about The Bohemian Club. Yes, there’s a real secret society for the rich and famous that meets at a privately owned camping ground nestled amongst the towering redwood trees of Sonoma County, and their mascot is a massive owl statue, the fabled “Owl of Bohemia”. But the truth behind The Bohemian Club is incredibly mundane. Numerous exposés have tried to either uncover illicit, salacious activities or to reveal American captains of industry engaged in the machinations that keep the world under their nefarious control, but all they’ve really done is reveal a bunch of wealthy right-wing twats indulging in idle pageantry while drinking too much, pissing freely in the woods (such exhausting veneration of piss) and entertaining themselves with insipid displays of mediocre comedy for a fortnight each year while smoking thousands of cigars in defiance of all posted fire codes and severely underpaying their overworked staff.

One of my personal favorite stories on The Grove is memorably titled “Mark Twain Did Not Sacrifice Babies To Moloch”. Somebody needs to slap that clever bon mot on a t-shirt.

The truth behind The Grove is the stuff of nightmares, to be sure, but not exactly what people are looking for in their spine-chilling horror entertainment. So obviously Late Night had to spike the punch, as it were, and make their own secret society more overtly ominous.

Absolutely terrifying.

Still, Late Night’s fictional Grove doesn’t really add anything here. We could’ve just had the one satanic cult. That was enough. Jack basically sells his soul to The Grove because they promise him stardom. But he didn’t read the fine print, did he? They never do. There’s always a price to be paid, Jack. Your dear, non-smoker wife had to go. Lung cancer, I’m afraid. Sweet irony. But that’s not all, my gullible friend. You really didn’t pay attention to the details of your contract. And we all know who lurks within those…

Of course as the film’s events unfold it’s heavily implied (HEAVILY IMPLIED) that there’s a deeper connection between the two seemingly disparate cults, but we'll come back around to that soon enough.

So what exactly happens in Late Night? What’s the actual plot?

The Halloween broadcast kicks off with a performance from Christou, a flamboyant medium who clumsily bullshits his way through a cold reading with the captive studio audience. Late Night presents Christou as an obvious charlatan from the beginning, an oily conman with a ridiculous accent, which I feel to be a mistake. I’ve seen my share of so-called mediums at work in person, and most of them are smoother operators than this. If Christou were a more serious and charismatic figure from the beginning, his eventual humiliation via the self-righteous Carmichael The Great would have been much more satisfying. Fayssal Bazzi's performance is quite good; my issue here lies with the character as written. It's just a bit too camp for my tastes. 

But wait! At the end of Christou’s segment he appears to be honestly channeling some sort of troubled spirit! He is in tremendous pain as he seeks the one who will speak with “Minnie”! The unmarried man who wears a wedding ring!

As quickly as the spirit appears, it departs, and Christou is visibly shaken. Now we all know who the unmarried man is meant to be. And Minnie sounds a bit like the real name of Jack’s late wife Madeline, the real name of Jack's late wife. Do you think Madeline might be trying to make her presence known? Is she attempting to provide Jack with some sort of warning from beyond the grave?

The next segment introduces Carmichael Haig, once The Conjurer, former magician turned hoax buster, crusader for the common rube. Based heavily on the very real James Randi, who appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson over thirty times, our fictional stand-in, much like Randi, even founded his own organization to disprove psychic phenomena, complete with the offer of a substantial cash reward for any individual who can provide verifiable proof of their particular abilities. A cash reward that has yet to be claimed. He even uses a similar phrase as Randi to describe himself as “an honest liar”.

Carmichael is also a huge asshole, all too happy to bully and humiliate his chosen targets, especially if there are cameras close at hand. The man craves the spotlight at least as much as the thrill of debunking phony psychics, and whenever he can combine the two, it’s like chocolate and peanut butter for this smarmy prick.

Interestingly, the character of Carmichael in Late Night is almost certainly inspired by a real-life incident that took place on The Don Lane Show in the 1970s. If you’re not familiar, American transplant comedian and singer Lane became a fixture on Melbourne’s Nine Network beginning in 1975 with his popular talk show, which ran until 1983 and by the time it ended Lane was known as the highest paid performer on Australian television.

Among Lane’s frequent guests were self-proclaimed psychic Uri Geller and medium Doris Stokes, with whom Lane was particularly enamored. James Randi, well known at the time for his habit of challenging claims of “genuine” psychic abilities and paranormal phenomena, was invited to be a guest on Lane’s show while in Australia at the time, and things didn’t go very well.

Here’s a short clip of Randi’s appearance.

And for more (needed) context behind his appearance, you can listen to Randi himself explain what occurred behind the scenes of The Don Lane Show here.

Regardless, this incident was a pretty big deal at the time in Australia, and it’s still well remembered by many. The Cairnes brothers, directors of Late Night, native Australians themselves, internalized this legendary altercation between Lane and Randi, and it became one of several seeds that eventually germinated into the beloved tree that currently holds a 96% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

In fact, you may have missed it but during the documentary prologue a newspaper clip briefly appears onscreen identifying Delroy’s late night predecessor on UBC, the late Des Lane, who died mysteriously in a “freak elevator accident”, conveniently leaving a gap in the network’s schedule that Delroy was all too happy to fill. Clearly the name is an affectionate homage to Don Lane, who passed away in 2009.

That's a pretty tasteless joke, Jack.

Also: MOAR CULT SHENANIGANS!

Given the opportunity, our man Carmichael quickly pokes a bunch of holes in the sickly Christou’s phony psychic stage show, but Christou doesn’t seem to care all that much since he’s dealing with bigger problems, abruptly projectile vomiting copious amounts of black bile all over the set, not to mention all over Carmichael’s lovely blazer (One of several distracting digital effects scattered throughout the film. The vomit, not the blazer. I'm pretty sure the blazer wasn't a digital effect.), and is promptly escorted to a local hospital for urgent treatment. Unfortunately, Christou apparently pops like a balloon filled with blood in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and that’s all just a bit suspect. Almost like some bizarre supernatural shenanigans are afoot. 

Also R.I.P. Christou, you were too good for this world.

Goodbye, sweet angel.

The main event of the evening occurs. Lilly is introduced, and she’s weird because of course she’s weird. If you were raised as a sacrificial lamb by a hardcore satanic cult you’d be weird, too. The terrifying “Mr. Wriggles” eventually emerges and says a bunch of cryptic and spooky stuff in an eye-rolling processed “evil” voice, implying that it has intimate knowledge of Jack and his sordid past, having crossed paths before "amongst the tall trees”. How juicy. The chair she’s strapped to levitates, which understandably freaks out a lot of people watching the macabre spectacle unfold, before Lilly regains control of herself due to a timely and forceful slap from June's strong right hand. Obviously there’s something capital E-Evil occurring here.

But Carmichael isn’t convinced, and he thinks he knows exactly what chicanery the “good doctor” June Ross-Mitchell was using to take advantage of Lilly, the cast of Night Owls, and everyone watching in the studio audience and at home. Carmichael demonstrates his skepticism by hypnotizing Jack’s hapless sidekick Gus for a few minutes on camera, who becomes convinced that his body is filled with wiggling worms and he tears his abdomen open to let them all crawl out. Oh no, how scary. 

But wait! It was all an illusion! Carmichael didn’t just hypnotize Gus. He hypnotized everybody! Even the viewers at home! We all saw this gory display occur on camera, but it was in actuality a mass delusion, because when the footage of the hypnosis is quickly reviewed by the cast, nothing untoward is seen. Following Carmichael’s heavy-handed suggestions, Gus simply unbuttons his shirt and rubs his belly because there be worms in there, but that’s it.

We’ve all just been Carmichael’d!

Does this scene work? I understand why it exists. I imagine the sight of poor Gus tearing himself apart to reveal he’s filled with slimy worms is disquieting to somebody. But this is really just an example of the filmmakers ignoring the format they chose to present their story in order to suit their own purposes. In this case, it’s clearly shock value. They wanted to insert another big “scare” sequence in their story because they were worried people might forget they’re watching a horror movie if something really spooky doesn’t happen every fifteen minutes. It's a bit cheap.

If anything, maintaining the verisimilitude of the film by watching Carmichael hypnotize Gus into making a fool of himself on camera and convincing the audience that they’re all actually seeing a giant monster worm burrow its way out of the goober’s skull without showing the carnage might have provided a good laugh for the actual audience (us), a disarming moment that doesn’t betray the established gimmick that we’re actually watching an old TV show. That choice might have even made the film’s climax more effective.

But of course the business with “Mr. Wriggles” wasn’t some simple mass delusion. And that becomes abundantly clear when all hell breaks loose at the climax, after Lilly supercharges herself on pure electricity direct from the set’s wiring and her head splits open like a coconut, a column of ghostly fire emerging from within. The unleashed Abraxas slays Gus, who adorably discovers his inner exorcist for ten seconds before his neck is violently snapped by invisible demon hands.

My hero.

Dr. June and Carmichael are next to feel the unholy power of Lilly's flaming mind while a terrified studio audience runs for the exits, all without breaking a sweat. Do demons sweat? I don't know. Late Night disappointingly never answers that question.

Carmichael even falls to his knees praying, because there are no atheists in foxholes, but did you notice to whom Carmichael was praying?

Carmichael, you scamp.

Pledging his eternal allegiance to Satan doesn't do the trick, so Carmichael tries presenting his coveted check to the living nightmare looming before him, but Abraxas doesn’t seem like the type to be swayed by something so trivial as money. Or maybe she just didn’t know what Carmichael was trying to offer her, and would have gladly accepted the check had he explained himself clearly instead of babbling a mangled prayer while pissing his pressed slacks on camera. Nevertheless, she evaporates that damned check with a sarcastic "abracadabra"...

...then cooks Carmichael from the inside out.

Poor son of a bitch.

Then the movie completely breaks its “found footage” format to follow Jack on a lazily hallucinatory journey through a nightmarish version of his own talk show that was so poorly realized I momentarily became convinced that this sequence was meant to be some sort of parody. I literally blurted out the phrase “am I supposed to be taking this seriously” to nobody in particular while watching the conclusion to Late Night, I was so thrown by what I was seeing.

We’re even shown a staged recreation of Jack’s initiation into The Grove, only the leader of the satanic cult that raised Lilly is also in attendance this time around. So this might be Abraxis playing mind games with Jack, but it really just cements the idea that the two separate cults are more likely two sides of the same devil worshiping coin. It’s all very over the top and, dare I say it, a little dopey in its execution. Jack then finds himself comforting a dying Madeline in bed once again, who asks her dearly devoted husband to put her out of her misery with a convenient and sinister-looking dagger, which looks an awful lot like the sinister-looking ceremonial dagger recovered from the satanic cult Dr. June brought with her to the Night Owls set earlier in the film. Why did she bring this dagger? I don’t know. Show and tell? I guess it’s Chekov’s Dagger.

So Jack kills his beloved wife with the dagger in his delusion, then we cut back to footage from the Night Owls set to see Jack’s really stabbed Lilly to death with that same dagger. He’s surrounded by bodies, the sound of police sirens is getting louder, and he confusedly stumbles around the otherwise abandoned set, trying to wake up from this horrible dream…

What’s with the camera here? We’re back in the “real” Night Owls set and there’s somebody still there operating a camera after all the carnage and confusion? Oooh, maybe it’s the Devil! That’s spooky!  Of course we see cameras one, two and three resting abandoned on the set in this shot, and there were only three studio cameras on the Night Owls set to begin with, so this "real" footage is almost certainly the handiwork of Abraxas, and more than likely a final artistic flourish on the part of the filmmakers. Wouldn’t this final moment have been much more effective it was from the perspective of one of the abandoned studio cameras, knocked over during the evacuation, perhaps even badly damaged? A skewed, fixed angle, rolling video, maybe a cracked lens? Perhaps, if this footage is intended to represent reality. But I'll touch on that a bit further along.

I'm ambivalent regarding the climax. I'm not sure if it works. For starters, it’s too “big”. The events that occur on camera (before it shatters the format to follow Jack’s personal breakdown) were broadcast live across the nation on Halloween, 1977. A literal fucking demon with a fountain of fire spewing from her ruined head murdered three people in gruesome fashion without laying a finger on them, all on live television. That would have irrevocably changed the world. But the documentary prologue to Late Night treats this broadcast like some kind of obscure, mostly forgotten artifact that’s been unearthed and presented to modern viewers. Can you really tell me with a straight face that footage presenting irrefutable proof of murderous demons existing in this world, wreaking havoc on a well known late night talk show, wouldn’t change absolutely fucking everything? I don’t buy it.

Blame it all on Jack! Lock him up! He falsified the footage somehow! It was all a stunt!

Big deal. My cousin's head splits open and becomes a portal to Hell all the time.

This footage would break people’s brains. The fucking Devil (or at least one of his best friends) manifested on live TV. We’re all going to church tomorrow and every other day for the rest of our lives after witnessing this. Exorcists are going to be popping up all over the place. Booming business. Not to mention the potential geopolitical implications. If the Devil is real, God is real, too! We might get a modern Crusade out of this! Armageddon! Who knows? The sky’s the limit!

I feel like the movie needed to dial things back during the climax. Don’t get so ambitious with the special effects. Keep it subtle. Subtlety is key. Of course I say this knowing full well subtlety was not what the directors were going for with this movie. Not during the climax, or really at all. Most of the characters are deliberately over the top in their performances, Carmichael being the most egregious for me. Too arch, maybe? But I suppose that fits the character, so it’s not exactly a problem. Besides, Ian Bliss was entertaining enough playing this ridiculous caricature of a person, so I guess I can accept that.

It’s all subjective, of course. What works for some doesn’t work for others. What I dislike here isn’t an inherent flaw in Late Night. Cameron and Colin Cairnes didn’t make mistakes here. On the contrary, they made exactly the movie they desired to make. 

In terms of pure aesthetics, the movie tries to have its cake and eat it too. This is presented as a late night talk show from 1977. But the movie didn’t push far enough to make this look believably like a late night talk show from 1977. The footage is all too clean for 70s video. The camera angles are too cinematic, the editing too slick, too modern. Late Night doesn’t “commit to the bit”.

Pay close attention to the initial conversation with “Mr. Wriggles”. Note the camera work, the editing. You probably didn’t consciously notice any of that the first time around, because that’s just how movies operate. You’ve been conditioned to accept this aesthetic choice. Filmmakers build suspense with the techniques on display during this sequence all the time. It’s a cinematic experience. But this is not how a talk show in 1977, or in 2024, for that matter, would ever shoot a segment. Is this inherently a problem? Not if you don’t care about committing to the bit.

WNUF commits to the bit. That looks like a tenth generation recording of a 1980s TV broadcast. 

Look at that beautiful garbage.

Of course WNUF wasn’t designed for wide theatrical viewing. It played in a few theaters, for sure, but that wasn’t ever going to be the primary method of distribution for the movie. Late Night by design looks and feels like a modern movie masquerading as a vintage production, and I believe this is probably due to the filmmakers not wanting to create a final product that looks “too ugly”, fearing that perhaps audiences would reject a version of the movie that feels more like an actual period broadcast.

The issues that plague vintage shot on video productions are entirely missing here. The lack of image clarity, the after-images burned into the footage by visible light sources, NTSC color separation, the natural degradation of older archival formats that occurs over the years. None of that is present in Late Night, because this movie was photographed in crystal clear 4K video, and a bare minimum of post-production image work was performed here. This was a valid aesthetic choice. I get that. It’s disappointing, but I understand.

Remember Skinamarink? I love Skinamarink. That movie achieved its look through a combination of shooting its scenes with the wrong settings on its camera combined with extensive post-production trickery and it looks like a broken analogue nightmare. Now it’s not a found footage film, but it shares many of the aesthetic elements of the found footage genre. The movie looks terrible on purpose, is what I’m saying. And it’s beautiful. 

Did you know Skinamarink made over $2 million in its theatrical release back in early 2023? Isn’t that great? $2 million for a movie as deliberately weird as Skinamarink. Of course Late Night grossed over $11 million in its own theatrical release earlier this year. Respectable business, largely due to it being a more accessible movie. More audience friendly. Good for Late Night. But seriously, good for Skinamarink. $2 million. Wow. Who could’ve seen that coming?

Am I comparing Skinamarink to Late Night? Not really. The movies are trying to accomplish two entirely different goals. Skinamarink is more of an experiment in mood than a traditional narrative feature. Late Night is a conventional story that follows a set formula, offering mild challenges to the audience without ever really pushing things too far outside of a comfortable narrative. This is not an insult. There’s nothing wrong with a movie that doesn’t try too hard to rock the boat. They can be great. They can be masterpieces. Calling Late Night With The Devil conventional is not a bad thing.

What bothers me is that Late Night as a movie isn’t particularly interested in truthfully mimicking the aesthetic of actual 1970s video production beyond its basic façade. The filmmakers barely commit to their own format from the beginning, introducing “behind the scenes footage” purportedly shot on 16mm b&w film by a never mentioned documentary crew with no less than three (perhaps four) cameras rolling simultaneously, which is just an insane idea if you think about it for more than two seconds. The “16mm” footage is also crystal clear 4K video with even less post production work done to alter its quality.

This documentary crew needed to be more firmly established, or established at all, perhaps even acknowledged by the cast of Night Owls at some point beyond Lilly consistently staring directly into every camera that crosses her field of vision throughout the movie. Who hired this crew? Are they freelance? Film students? Did Delroy hire them to document this occasion? Was it his producer, that prick Leo Fisk? The network? I don’t think that’s an unreasonable expectation, and it wouldn’t have taken more than one line from our narrator (dearest Michael Ironside) during the prologue to satisfy me.

These sequences aren’t ever shot or staged like “fly on the wall” documentary footage either, but like scenes from any bog-standard motion picture, all carefully considered angles and framing. Here’s an example from the scene where Gus informs Carmichael that Christou never made it to the hospital:

Documentaries don’t do that. Shot-reverse shot is one of the oldest cinematic tricks in the book. It’s also one of the laziest. You see it so often in every movie and TV show you watch that you probably don’t even notice it. This is just how conversations tend to be presented in narrative media, an intrinsic part of the standard movie vocabulary. Some filmmakers, however, famously push back against these conventions. Watch one of Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s movies and take note of how often you don’t see shot-reverse shot during conversations, for example.

You will never see a real documentary that looks like the “documentary” footage presented in Late Night. You’re not watching a found footage movie during these sequences. You’re just watching a movie. The Cairnes brothers are abandoning their established format here because they can’t figure out any other way to convey important information in their narrative.

I would argue that this particular conceit wasn’t necessary at all. Perhaps the Night Owls video cameras kept rolling during the commercial breaks and the live onset microphones picked up previously unheard audio from our cast? There are more subtle methods of achieving the same result that would not break the established pattern, but once again I understand that subtlety was not the goal here. Ignoring the format you’ve established as a filmmaker when it becomes inconvenient for you is lazy, but acknowledging this lack of imagination doesn’t kill Late Night as an experience for me. Of course it doesn’t help, either.

Jack Delroy’s fourth wall wrecking descent into madness isn’t exactly a deal breaker, either. I’m fine with all of that in concept. I’m just not all that thrilled with the execution. Once again I can point to an example of a film that I believe attempts a similar concept in a slightly more effective manner.

Have you seen 1998's The Last Broadcast? Presented as a documentary directed by an unknown filmmaker named David Leigh, the climax of the film abruptly abandons the documentary we’ve been watching for over an hour, becoming a third-person narrative that follows Leigh as it’s revealed that he’s the true killer who committed the murders that serve as the subject of the documentary he was directing.

It was a rather divisive story choice, to say the least. A lot of contemporary critics and audiences hated that ending. I struggled with that conclusion myself the first time I watched The Last Broadcast. I eventually came around to seeing it as a brave stylistic decision that served to elevate the entire experience of watching the film. Once again, this is all subjective. The conclusion to The Last Broadcast worked for me where Late Night’s ending felt just a bit goofy. There’s no judgment on my part if you think the latter’s climax works beautifully. Based on the almost universal acclaim this film has received, it seems like I’m in the minority here. 

Honestly I was convinced watching Jack's distorted walk down memory lane that he was actually dying on the set of Night Owls and his soul was traversing the bardo. Thematically it makes sense. It's said that when one's soul journeys through the bardo that the manifestations one confronts within are all products of the dying mind, that one might relive moments from the past and face sinister entities conjured by one's karma that seek to harm the soul as it transitions from one life to the next. That's pretty much what's happening to Jack in this sequence. The sins of his past are being visited upon him as he fumbles his way through this karmic limbo. Based on where he ends up in those final moments, I don't think he wound up anywhere good. And that would explain why the film ends with that sweeping shot from an impossible fourth studio camera.

What's real and what's imagined? Does it matter? It gives you something to think about, at the very least. I can respect that.

By the way, we all remember this really obvious shot of Madeline’s ghost, right? The one the movie stops in its tracks to shove in your face with all the subtlety of a jackhammer to the skull?

There she is!

Did you catch the earlier appearances of Madeline? Her ghost is haunting the entire movie, and I mean that literally. Of course she’s metaphorically haunting the events of Late Night, but her actual ghost appears numerous times before this late moment in the film. Try to count them all next time you watch. It’s a neat little Easter egg.

The initiation ceremony recreation as presented feels like a bad high school drama production. Clearly the cast was told to overact in this sequence. It’s not meant to represent reality. We’re lost in Delroy’s shattered mind, likely being manipulated by the demon inhabiting poor Lilly, and that’s all well and good. It doesn’t need to feel real. But I would argue it shouldn’t feel like a parody of an actual movie.

But if it all worked for you, that’s great. We’re all different, like snowflakes. We don’t have to agree on anything, and if we agreed on everything, the world would be an extraordinarily boring place, indeed.

So what exactly was going on with that ending? Was Abraxas tricking Jack into killing Lilly? Was she the sacrifice that would unleash the demon into homes across America? I believe it's established earlier in the film that Abraxas only has power over individuals if they witness a sacrifice in the demon's name. The cult burned their compound down with everybody inside, and Lilly was the only survivor. That seems to be a part of their ultimate design. So was the purpose to free Abraxas upon the world? Probably not, since nothing apocalyptic happened, as Late Night is presented as a modern repackaging of the vintage Night Owls broadcast. But maybe Abraxas does hold sway over all of us. How many people tuned in to this very special episode? How many people invited these events into their living rooms on Halloween night? 

And where does the ghost of Madeline fit in here? Clearly she was trying to warn Jack of impending danger throughout the film. When Jack reunites with Madeline at the end, was that really her, or was it Abraxas in disguise? Did Madeline trick Jack into killing Lilly to stop Abraxas? Was it Lilly? Did the girl want to be free of the demon's control? I don't know. Do you know? If so, tell me in a comment below. I'd love to hear what you think.

My deepest complaints with Late Night lie with the perception that the filmmakers simply wanted to use the surface aesthetic of a 1970s talk show to tell an otherwise unimaginative story that really could’ve been set here and now with nothing lost. What does it serve to set this story in 1977? Or to frame the story as found footage? Does Late Night do anything meaningful with its vintage trappings? Beyond that, the story itself is thoughtful and engaging enough, but the only reason the conclusion is really challenging in any way is because it destroys the previously established format. Without that, what have you got? A horror movie that doesn’t have any meaningful scares (once again, just my opinion), and a bizarrely complicated plot that perhaps proves detrimental to such a simple story. I ask again: do we need TWO cults in this movie?

And don’t give me that “they’re really ONE cult” garbage. The self-serious goofballs in red robes sacrificing kids may have been worshiping the same demon, but I refuse to believe those nobodies were directly related to the starched collar douche bags that made up The Grove. Maybe they were an upstart splinter sect that wanted to democratize the worship of Abraxas rather than keeping their unholy master merely the subject of elite adoration. Perhaps they were idealists, the Martin Luthers of evil. Instead of posting their list of propositions for disputation on a church door… they lit themselves on fire.

What's up with Abraxas, anyway? 

Not now, Jesse!

Szandor D'Abo, leader of the so-called "First Church of Abraxas", claims he and his followers are beyond such mortal notions as good and evil, there is only "what we desire, and how we obtain it". The following excerpt from Carl Jung's The Seven Sermons To The Dead describes Abraxas thusly: 

It is abundance that seeketh union with emptiness.

It is holy begetting.

It is love and love’s murder.

It is the saint and his betrayer.

It is the brightest light of day and the darkest night of madness.

To look upon it, is blindness.

To know it, is sickness.

To worship it, is death.

To fear it, is wisdom.

To resist it not, is redemption.

God dwelleth behind the sun, the devil behind the night. What god bringeth forth out of the light the devil sucketh into the night. But Abraxas is the world, its becoming and its passing. Upon every gift that cometh from the god-sun the devil layeth his curse.

Everything that ye entreat from the god-sun begetteth a deed of the devil.

Everything that ye create with the god-sun giveth effective power to the devil.

That is terrible Abraxas.

It is the mightiest creature, and in it the creature is afraid of itself.

Jung, the true author of The Seven Sermons, attributes authorship to Basilides, the leader of a popular Gnostic Christian sect in the 2nd Century CE. Basilides taught that Abraxas (or Abrasax) was the first of the Archons, the Unborn Father, the God above Gods, from whom all realms physical and spiritual originate. These teachings of Basilides represent an early form of Emanationist doctrine. Under Abraxas, the order of Archons known as the Hebdomad rule the numerous spheres of existence. The Abrahamic God is considered one of these Archons, the Gnostic "demiurge" that created the physical realm. Other Gnostic sects interpreted the Hebdomad as sinister powers that influenced mortals, often leading them astray. 

Basilides portrayed Abraxas as a being above human morality, an entity that encompassed all of reality, the good, the bad, and everything in between. Traditional Christians ascribe all that is good to God and all that is evil to Satan, but Abraxas, the Unborn Father, is the primordial sense of unity beyond morality, which is a construct of the material world. Abraxas represents the concept of non-duality, the revelation that moral division is an illusion. Good and evil exist within us all, and we are all aspects of the divine. This is not to say, however, that it's perfectly fine to ignore morality and just do whatever pleases you. It's simply a means of recognizing that the capacity for evil lies within all of us, or as Dr. June says in Late Night, we all have a demon within us. We're not meant to follow Abraxas; we are Abraxas, emanations of an unknowable divinity to which we return when our bodies die, not dissimilar from the Hindu concept of Brahman, according to the non-dualist school of thought that teaches Brahman is the only reality, and all perceived separation is merely an illusion.

The Catholic Church later reinvented Abraxas as an unclean spirit, a demonic tempter of humanity, and that interpretation, popularized by the 19th Century's Dictionnaire Infernal, has stuck in the popular culture. Szandor D'Abo takes the teachings of Basilides to a destructive extreme, embracing the darkness within and inviting evil to grow within his heart, despite his insistence that evil does not truly exist. 

Although Carmichael Haig claims that the Gnostic interpretation of Abraxas craves an audience, he's sorely mistaken. Abraxas in the teachings of Basilides craves nothing, for they are an inscrutable, primal force that cannot be judged or understood by a mortal mind. But taking Carmichael's comment at face value for the sake of the narrative, Late Night's version of Abraxas is most assuredly a demonic entity, and we can assume they do crave an audience. This makes Abraxas the perfect demon to be worshiped by The Grove, an elite cult populated with network executives and film studio heads. And I suppose it's not outside the realm of possibility for the events behind this very special episode of Night Owls to have been carefully orchestrated by The Grove. Perhaps Jack's discovery of Conversations With The Devil wasn't mere happenstance. 

This is the kind of thing that happens when I start writing a simple review, and it's why I don't really write these reviews anymore. I have a fetish for tangents, apparently. If you listen to the show then you already know that, but there's a difference between rambling about these subjects in a podcast and actually writing about them. When I'm writing, I can add all sorts of goofy annotations and links and videos, and before I know it, a review that should have taken me maybe an hour or two to type out has stretched on for several days as I get repeatedly distracted by one subject or another. I could go on about Gnostic Christianity, Basilides and Brahman forever, but instead I'm going to stop now, because you don't want to read that. You didn't come here for my semi-coherent digressions, after all. 

Let's just wrap things up, shall we?

I can’t help but wonder if Late Night With The Devil would have been more successful for me if it had maintained the documentary format from beginning to end, rather than simply presenting the “infamous broadcast” after the prologue. Footage from the Halloween episode of Night Owls could have been framed by clips from numerous earlier broadcasts for larger context, interspersed with interviews from survivors who witnessed the events, as well as from contemporaries of Delroy commenting on the tragic incidents, with an epilogue detailing what occurred after Night Owls went off the air for the last time on Halloween of 1977. Basically a feature documentary detailing the rise and fall of Jack Delroy, showcasing the triumphs and tragedies of a talk show host who doesn’t exist.

That would’ve been more interesting for me, perhaps, but it wouldn’t have grossed over $11 million at the box office, and it wouldn’t have been so enthusiastically embraced by horror fans. A bad idea, in other words.

I hate to be the kind of person who points out flaws in a movie and then proclaims “this is what I would have done” because there’s a presumption behind that phrase I don’t like. I don’t know better than the filmmakers. The best thing I ever made was a short film called Pig Fucker twenty-four years ago, and it’s objectively terrible. Colin and Cameron Cairnes made the movie they set out to make. A whole lot of people love the movie they made. I’m genuinely happy for the, and I hope this is the beginning of a long and successful career for these talented guys.

Overall, I was pleased with the performances. Ingrid Torelli had a particularly difficult dual role, having to walk a tightrope between creepy and sympathetic as Lilly, and she acquitted herself admirably. And when she finally got to chew a little scenery as “Mr. Wriggles”, Torelli managed to convey a genuine sinister quality despite the unnecessary vocal effects, which I found distracting.

David Dastmalchian really shined in this, what many are falsely labeling his first lead role, and he deserves all the praise he’s getting. This is actually his second lead role, but nobody remembers 2014's Animals, an effective romantic drama about lovers hooked on heroin which he also wrote, based in part on his own struggles with addiction.

Dastmalchian sold moments of internal turmoil and uncertainty with a subtlety that was sorely missing from the rest of the film. The expression on Jack’s face when he sees the image of his late wife standing next to him while reviewing footage of the “Mr. Wriggles” interview in particular is heartbreaking. You can see a maelstrom of emotions churning behind his eyes.

Did you notice the hand on Jack's shoulder in that shot, and only that shot, by the way? It's a fine detail.

I appreciate this.

A monster kid through and through, Dastmalchian lives and breathes this stuff, and I love him for that. He grew up watching Crematia Mortem hosting Creature Feature in Kansas City, created his own live action horror host named Doctor Fearless, his Count Crowley comics (deftly illustrated by Lukas Ketner) are a great read, and he's even hosted Fangoria's legendary Chainsaw Awards show. A more passionate horror nerd you may never find. The Cairnes brothers actually reached out to David to star in their movie after reading a Fangoria article he’d written regarding his passion for TV horror hosts. They knew he was the perfect choice to bring Jack Delroy to life.

I just take issue with two aspects of the film. The first is the matter of adopting the trappings of the found footage genre only to abandon them whenever and wherever it’s convenient for the filmmakers. There were better ways to tell this story, but the Cairnes brothers weren’t interested in trying. The real challenge, I believe, would have been to commit fully to the format and find creative solutions to convey the information they deemed necessary to the story. Late Night just jams a bunch of exposition up front and then proceeds to turn what could’ve been an innovative feature into a disappointingly formulaic final product, occasionally flirting with greatness yet never quite reaching those lofty heights.

My second issue, and honestly more of a nitpick that anything, involves The Grove. You could argue that Jack's deal with The Grove is central to the film's main theme, and I would agree. But I would argue that it simply isn't necessary. Stardom becomes Jack's all-consuming goal, the pursuit of ratings dominance and the trappings of fame are Jack's god, and avarice his altar. Literally making a deal with BIG EVIL is missing the point. Desperate to become the king of late night television causes Jack to lose his way, and after Madeline's death he completely surrenders to this pursuit because he has nothing else left. Seducing June Ross-Mitchell and convincing her to further exploit the traumatized young girl in her care on live television for a ratings boost is an abhorrent act, and with the tragic events that inevitably ensue, their blood is on his hands. 

But none of these characters, save Lilly, are entirely innocent. June was perfectly happy to write a lurid non-fiction account of the cult in which Lilly was born and the continuing struggles with the aftermath of her "miraculous" rescue. And it didn't take too much prodding for Jack to persuade June to conjure "Mr. Wriggles" during the broadcast. Carmichael Haig takes pleasure in humiliating people he disrespects, all under the guise of "protecting" the gullible masses from being duped by nefarious villains, but his delight in looking down upon his supposed intellectual inferiors betrays an ugly streak of pride within. Christou is one of those grifters Carmichael despises so much, a parasite who takes advantage of people's very real grief, manipulating easy marks by consoling them with empty platitudes and promises of forgiveness, affirmations of adoration from loved ones reaching out from "the other side".

What do they have in common? Fame. They all crave the spotlight, some more overtly than others. June, who genuinely seems to care for Lilly, still willingly puts her charge at risk because a part of her wants to be a star. Even poor Gus, Jack's eternal whipping boy, who vocally expresses his misgivings with the events of the broadcast repeatedly throughout, chooses to remain rather than leaving the set like other members of the crew. A loyal company man, he ignores his wise instincts to flee in order to stay by Jack's side during the final act, even after what he's already witnessed. And it costs him everything. Fame is the true villain in Late Night With The Devil, the monster that consumes our cast and leaves only carnage and desolation in its wake. 

All of that can be in the movie without Jack Delroy literally selling his soul to a devil-worshiping secret society of rich assholes who like to wear owl masks and party in the woods. I contend that the story is stronger if Jack destroys himself without the aid of the sneering corporate evil of The Grove pulling strings behind the scenes. But The Grove doesn't ruin the movie. Not at all. It's just one too many elements for me. 

If you'd like to watch a truly amazing horror movie with similar themes, you owe it to yourself to check out 2014's criminally underrated Starry Eyes. Alexandra Essoe’s fearless lead performance is astonishing. 

In the end, Late Night With The Devil is beyond competently made, and despite my misgivings I never found it less than engaging as basic entertainment. I was very much looking forward to seeing the movie, and I certainly didn't regret the experience. It was definitely never boring. I just saw the potential for something great here, and I was left frustrated because I ultimately felt the movie didn't truly live up to that potential. There's a lot to recommend, but I wanted to love Late Night, and in the end I just really liked it.

As I wrap up, I'd like to briefly mention Late Night With The Devil and it's controversial use of AI generated imagery. This is one of the three examples of blatant AI generated artwork used as ad break bumpers for the Night Owls show, and clearly the most obvious.

Look at this dumb thing.

Look at that abomination. The filmmakers claim there was “additional work” done to these images to make them more appealing, but if that's true, then what the hell did this... this thing look like before it was touched up? It’s absolutely absurd to slap this glossy crap into your fictional 1970s talk show and just expect people to meekly accept it. The producers could have hired an actual artist to make a much better version of this image for peanuts, an artist who would have been thrilled to be involved with a project like this, and the end result would’ve looked amazing. Instead we’re presented with this lazy garbage. Here's an image I "created" this morning with a free Stable Diffusion browser prompt generator with a Night Owls logo slapped onto it. This took me maybe two minutes to toss together from beginning to end, and it barely looks worse than the "professional" imagery used in this movie.

 

Yes, it sucks. It's supposed to suck.

That's pathetic. 

I know the subject has been discussed ad nauseam over the past weeks, and I don’t really have much to add except to say that I hate this. I hate this whole situation, and it sets a bad precedent. The future is here, and it sucks. 

So obviously Late Night With The Devil is one of the worst movies ever made and everybody who enjoys this thoroughly mediocre excuse for horror is clearly an idiot.