Guest Post: Late Night with the Devil (2024)

Late Night With The Devil, The Ratings Are Killer

by Jonas Schwartz-Own

 

The demonic time capsule of the tumultuous 1970s, Late Night With The Devil, is a mastery of the Me Generation mise-en-scène. The production design is pitch perfect in its dreariness, visually evoking dread in a tale of television and the desperation for success.

 

Halloween 1977, Night Owls with Jack Delroy is fighting to beat the ratings of that epoch, The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson. But while Johnny features A-Listers Jane Fonda, Mark Hamill, and Burt Reynolds as guests, Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) and his third-rate studio book grade-Z hacks and charlatans, yet still mysteriously pull in viewers. To celebrate the holiday, Jack brings on a side-show psychic (Fayssal Bazzi), a former magician turned skeptic (Ian Bliss), a reluctant parapsychologist (Laura Gordon) and her charge, a young survivor of a mass suicide cult (Ingrid Torelli). The little girl appears to have been invaded by a demonic being. Would an exorcism lift Jack to the top of the ratings?

 

Brother-writer/directors Colin and Cameron Cairnes successfully capture ‘70s television so well, audiences may mistake the footage for being actually shot in 1977. The burnt colors of the set and costume design pallet, the tacky suits the actors wear, and muted tones of the cinematography pull the viewers through the looking glass. The opening, a montage of the chaotic ‘70s, works well on its own. Though it’s obvious the narration, provided by horror icon Michael Ironside, pays homage to the schlocky “In Search Of…” series with Leonard Nimoy or to the opening of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it’s too on the nose, and sets an overstated tone. The visuals themselves would have been better.  

 

It works well for the plot twists that the film set and its occupants are amateurish, despite the show’s high ratings. It suggests more milquetoast daytime fare, like the news show Panorama or The Dinah Shore Show, than the late -night master Johnny Carson or his competition. The camerawork also hammers home the shoddiness of the crew with its zooms and camera angles. 

 

Besides the blandness of the boob tube, the directors slyly reference two major classics of the era. The most obvious is Friedkin’s The Exorcist with its tale of a child possessed, as well as a visual reference to Jack MacGowran’s death. The directors also allude to Brian DePalma’s Carrie – the little girl’s long hair dripping down resembles everyone’s favorite prom queen, the screen splits to share different conversations at the same time, and the TV audience climbing over each other and tripping over seats is almost shot-for-shot the gymnasium carnage. 

 

The lead cast is outstanding.  Dastmalchian masters smarminess with a faux warmth hiding contempt that many late night guests notice from their hosts. Bliss is hilariously supercilious, as the debunker whose delusion of dominance is revealed by endlessly pontificating. Torelli unhinges the audience every time the camera hangs on her. With a haunting smile and menacingly calm demeaner, she’s the embodiment of a Manson girl. 

 

Some of the smaller roles though are a bit stiff, like Jack’s cameraman, which lifts the audience from believing that the terror is real in the behind-the-scenes moments. 

 

While their writing could use a bit more refinement (the opening and the fantasy denouement are both more over the top than necessary), Late Night With The Devil exposes the fresh talent of the Cairnes brothers, particularly with their direction.