“Late Night with the Devil”
By Lucas Battista
Streaming on Shudder. Starring David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Fayssal Bazzi, Ingrid Torelli and Rhys Auteri.
There have been plenty of found-footage flicks in the last two decades, all of which owe their heritage to “The Blair Witch Project.” Admittedly, the “genre” as a whole (if you’d like to call it that) has become deeply oversaturated, and it would seem that audiences as of recent have grown tired of goofy camera spasms, cheap scares, and budgets so low Ed Wood would blush. Nonetheless, there have been some revivals and spins on found-footage as a whole- more immediately horror movies set entirely in group-calls seem to have made a dent (if only they understood the terror that is buffering.)
“Late Night with the Devil” seems to have taken a particularly novel shot: as its creative title suggests, it’s portrayed as a sort of cursed fusion between a fictionalized I-can’t-believe-it’s-not Dick Cavett and Mephistopheles, the latter which would in fact make his appearance on “Night Owls.” Night Owl’s host, Jack Delroy (played by David Dastmalchian), already haunted by frightening Nielsen ratings and his dead wife, seeks a return to greatness by any and all means necessary, even at great risk to his audience, corporeally and not. It’s clear a pain-staking amount of detail is dedicated to just capturing all the zeitgeists from 1970s and ‘80s America. We see a fictionalized Waco siege, the Satanic panic, giant bell-bottoms, terrible hygiene, way too much exposition, four whole tee-vee channels, a magazine spread of Johnny Carson’s fat mug, and amazingly terrible special-effects.
The movie transitions back and forth between its found-footage TV segments and intermittent commercial breaks filmed outside of the actual show, often interrupting the characters’ tenuous theatrics with a slap back to, or up to Earth. I’m glad it doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s a bunch of funny moments littered throughout the movie, and on the flipside, it doesn’t pull away for a moment from trying to shock you either. The scares are pretty amazing as well, and it’s all executed in such a way that it feels like you’re watching something truly forbidden. After all, Late Night shows have always seemed weirdly after-hours, hidden, and even a bit dangerous.
Plus, I’d have to stress that this may be the first and only found-footage movie I’ve seen that had working character-development, (“Chronicle” didn’t make the cut) and despite ten whole lifetimes of exposition fed through a straw it pays off in the end, you almost secretly want Jack Delroy to get what he wants and become Late Night Paganini, after a soul-transplant.
