Review: Late Night With The Devil

Image courtesy of IFC Films.

The low-budget horror movie throwback "Late Night with the Devil" is three-quarters of a decent piece of schlock that overstays its welcome and, ultimately, ends on a note that isn't altogether satisfying. That said, this is a gimmick movie that remains compelling and has an ever-present tension that is impressively maintained for most of its running time. 

The gimmick here is that the film's story unfolds in real time during the taping of a 1977 episode of a late night talk show featuring a host who has long dreamed of making it to the big time, but that goal has always been just out of reach. The film is in color during the scenes that are live on the air and in black and white during commercial breaks as the show's crew works behind the scenes.

We get a bit of back story upfront: Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) is a rival to Johnny Carson in the 1970s but his late-night show, "Night Owls," never poses a real threat to Carson's numbers. His viewership begin to lag and his wife develops cancer, which ultimately claims her life. 

Desperate to ensure that his show survives, Delroy plans a Halloween special that is stocked with kooky characters - a psychic named Christou (Fayssal Bazzi) who gets a disturbingly strong reading from someone in the crowd, a debunker named Carmichael the Conjurer (Ian Bliss) who agrees to be on the show to explain how all of the other guests are scammers, a parapsychologist named Dr. June (Laura Gordon) who appears to be having an affair with Delroy, and her subject, a young girl named Lily (Ingrid Torelli), the only survivor of a cult's mass suicide who is alleged to be possessed by a demonic entity known as Abraxas.

To his credit, Dastmalchian is believable as the smarmy talk show host who remains on as long as the cameras are running and appears to be scheming whenever they're not. One of the film's flaws is an allusion to his possible dealings with a cult-like celebrity group that never is explained enough to be interesting or provide any insight into Delroy's character. 

The film plays like a found footage film, albeit one shot with professional cameras in front of a live audience, rather than the grainy digital types to which we've become accustomed. Much of the film involves playing to expectations - for example, Christou's bad vibes he gets in the audience obviously portend something sinister to come. There is also one prominent red herring in the film involving an audience member.

Once the focus is on Dr. June and Lily, the film takes on a much creepier tone. There's nothing here you haven't seen before in countless exorcism films, but the culmination of the demon within Lily being pestered is more sturm und drang than I was expecting. Had the film ended there, "Late Night with the Devil" might have been a tighter picture. But it continues on after the Lily melee and, as a result, it's a weaker film for it.

Even if "Late Night" doesn't quite stick the landing, there are a number of things it gets right. As mentioned, Dastmalchian does a good job with this character, even if Delroy isn't developed as much as one might have liked. The film also gets the vibe of the era, even if some of the antics on the show aren't, perhaps, in line with late night talk shows of that time period. Although far from perfect, "Late Night with the Devil" is an often amusing and brief horror movie that fans of the genre will likely want to seek out.