'Late Night With The Devil' movie review: Talk show on horror mode

Updated On: 26 April, 2024 12:17 PM IST | Mumbai | Johnson Thomas

`Late Night With The Devil` movie review: The experience would have been much more involving if that prologue just wasn’t there and the audience was left to wonder what would transpire next

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Still from Late Night With The Devil

Film: Late night with the devil
Cast: David Dastmalchian, Ian Bliss, Laura Gordon, Fayssal Bazzi, Josh Quong Tart, Ingrid Torelli, Georgina Haig, Christopher Kirby
Director: Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes
Rating: 2.5/5
Runtime: 92 min.

Set in 1977, the movie envisions a commercial broadcast network emerging as a competitor to the reigning king of late night talk shows in the `70s, Johnny Carson. The rival, Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian), who has climbed the rung to National level from a lowly local Chicago talk show, is doing his best to get his ratings sky-high. But even after 6 seasons he hasn’t been able to overtake Carson. A quarterly event wherein the ratings company decides on what a network can charge for airtime becomes an opportunity for all networks to get as outrageous as they can so that they can increase their ratings. Jack and producer Leo (Josh Quong Tart), have been doing supernaturally-themed Halloween broadcasts with a costume contest but “Night Owl,” took a pause following Jack’s wife Madeleine’s tragic death from cancer. Because of the break, ratings opposite Carson nose-dived, leading to the special where they decide to go for broke by inviting a psychic/mentalist Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), a conjurer/sceptic Carmichael (Ian Bliss), bestselling parapsychologist Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and her ward Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), the only survivor of a satanic cult`s mass suicide during a standoff with police. An intriguing mix of guests who believe in their own versions of the paranormal and supernatural.

Things just go haywire from thereon. Wild, weird and gory, the shenanigans on TV has to be seen to be believed. One of the guests even vomited some kind of black goo and another had worms coming out of every part of his body. But the in-house audience just stays put raising questions about the premise that this is a found-footage set-up. It just gets bizarre and incredulous as the runtime escalates. The narrative in no way feels like a found-footage movie. All attempts to segregate found footage stuff from current storytelling frames by the discretionary use of B&W and color, may help in delineation but it doesn’t get us involved in any way. Everything seems to fall into place like the directors ordered so there’s hardly any room for suspense or surprises. The shaky camera work and occasional technical glitches lend authenticity to the shenanigans happening on the set though.

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