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Over the years, we’ve only seen the “found footage” subgenre of horror films take familiar forms like handheld cameras, unfinished documentary footage, or CCTV footage. But Colin and Cameron Cairnes propose something else almost entirely with Late Night with the Devil, where we’re watching a film all about a talk show broadcast where things didn’t quite go as planned. All that seems interesting enough, especially with the commitment to recreating the look of 1970’s talk shows. But even that artifice can only take the film itself so far.

Fittingly enough, it’s how the film starts: with a documentary-like introduction that details the meteoric rise and fall of talk show host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian), and his own show Night Owls. That’s where the film leads us into the disastrous Halloween broadcast where everything had transpired: and changed the face of American television history forever. Night Owls with Jack Delroy doesn’t show itself to be any different from any other variety talk show like The Tonight Show or its many variants or The Late Show. But given how this film is set alongside a contemporary of Johnny Carson, it nails the look perfectly.

Dastmalchian also brings enough charisma to the lead, commanding the screen as if he were a compelling talk show host himself. There’s a whole lot to like about how he composes himself here, because he’s giving this performance his all, before we really get to see the sinister side of show business underneath that façade which he presents on camera. The cast is also a whole lot of fun, in particular, it’s Ian Bliss and Faysal Bazzi that might as well be worth highlighting – especially in the scenes that show what goes on behind the scenes of this disastrous episode of Night Owls.

Unfortunately it seems like that’s where the good graces of Late Night with the Devil come to a rather abrupt end. Given the fact that the film starts off as a mockumentary covering the disastrous broadcast, you’d think that it would at least commit to that format to lead into interviews together with people who were either in the audience or had seen the episode when it aired on television. Instead, it seems like Colin and Cameron Cairnes stick by the familiar found footage format, which shows to be an interesting approach. Then it seems to abandon that once again, when going behind the scenes. Late Night with the Devil never commits to a format, in turn removing the suspension that would feel innate to such a concept.

It also leads into what I think ends up becoming the most disappointing thing about Late Night with the Devil. If this whole movie is supposedly found footage of a broadcast that had shaken up the whole world, why not include some incredibly garish commercial breaks? There would have been a fun little opportunity to satirize the consumerist ideals pushed onto American viewers in the 1970’s in that alone. But then the change in format between the taping of the show, and the behind-the-scenes footage just seems to unveil the artifice of it all (it also looks far too modern to be “found footage” from a show that needs to cut costs). Obviously, this isn’t helped by the fact that it was pointed out that the production design had used AI-generated art for the show’s title cards and its intertitles too. Eventually, the whole look of “homage” doesn’t feel as convincing anymore – for we know that it only looks completely fake. This all feels especially apparent in the film’s final moments, too.

It also leads into a very frustrating final product, because there are moments of genuine creativity present here in Late Night with the Devil. In particular, there’s a very gory set piece that comes in from the moment when the devil is conjured to possess the body of a teenage girl that I think delivers exactly what the title of the movie promises. I also found that this whole movie at least seems like it’s delving into interesting territory when we get the chance to explore the price of Jack Delroy’s sudden fame within the talk show scene, especially when the devil communicates directly with him – but those moments also happen so few and far in between that it never really seems to add up to anything meaningful.

There are many moments in Late Night with the Devil that feel like they could at least amounted to some form of brilliance. But they come out underutilized in the end. It’s not an interesting sort of pastiche either, and the artifice of it all is too evident. And all of that ends up undercutting what I think would have been otherwise fascinating on paper. Nonetheless, I can’t help while watching this but hope that we can at least see David Dastmalchian in more leading roles, because his performance as the charismatic Jack Delroy is proof enough that he can carry a leading role. It’s a shame that it all seems to come down to a film of wasted potential.

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Watch the trailer right here.

All images via Shudder.

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Directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes
Screenplay by Colin and Cameron Cairnes
Produced by Mat Govoni, Adam White, John Molloy, Roy Lee, Steven Schneider, Derek Dauchy
Starring David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Fayssal Bazzi, Ingrid Torelli, Rhys Auteri, Georgina Haig, Josh Quong Tart
Premiere Date: March 10, 2023
Running Time: 93 minutes