Late Night with the Devil

So long as it stays within the diegesis of the Night Owls broadcast, Late Night with the Devil casts an eerie, alluring spell. Period authenticity abounds in the film’s production design (courtesy of Where the Wild Things Are’s Otello Stolfo), as well as its set decoration, costumes, and props, the show’s title cards, the house band’s pop-funkified musical interjections, and Delroy’s off-color jokes and ribbing of his Ed McMahon–like right hand Gus (Rhys Auteri). Likewise, the performances adhere to the norms of ’70s late-night boob-tube culture while gradually infusing tension: the way Bazzi drops his accent altogether when it seems Christou might genuinely be overwhelmed by an errant spirit, or the subtle manner that Gordon’s face conveys discomfort as it becomes increasingly clear that she’s placed her charge in an unconscionably vulnerable position. Above all, Dastmalchian is so good as a consummate showman unable to disguise his burgeoning inner dread as he begins to recognize that his past betrayals are coming back to haunt him. Dastmalchian will be familiar to many viewers from his supporting turns in films like Oppenheimer and 2021’s Dune, but Late Night with the Devil makes it abundantly clear that the actor is more than capable of carrying the lead.

For all these reasons, it comes as a disappointment when the Cairnes’ third feature strays from the immediacy of the archival-broadcast conceit, breaking the contract of the found-footage format and, more importantly, dissipating the sense of immediacy. At least the film’s weakest passage is dispatched right off the top: there is a lengthy prologue, replete with anonymous voiceover, making generalizations about 1970s U.S. culture and offering point-form analysis of the major sociopolitical events of the day, featuring footage of Nixon, napalm, and the like. This prologue also offers a battery of exposition regarding the history of Night Owls and some of the depths to which Delroy stooped to solicit Nielsen ratings, but all of this could have been more elegantly dispensed with within the actual broadcast, whether through Delroy’s opening monologue or his interactions with his guests—Lilly most obviously. Late Night with the Devil also pivots away from the broadcast during commercial breaks, inserting behind-the-scenes material shot handheld in black and white and using unconvincing camerawork to reveal story points that, again, could have been implied through on-air incidents.

While rigorous adherence to the found-footage form would have created a more immersive experience and ratcheted tensions significantly higher, I want to make clear that Late Night with the Devil is blackly clever, meticulously executed in so many ways, and just a lot of fun, right up to its deeply strange, descent-into-hell coda.