Halloween, 1977.  Jack Delroy, the beleaguered host of the talk show Night Owls, has a slate of intriguing guests lined up that he hopes will provide a much-needed ratings boost.  Five years ago, Jack was viewed as a serious challenger to Johnny Carson and was given a handsome five-year contract.  Much to the chagrin of everyone involved, his show became mired in mediocre ratings ever since.  Even shifting to scheduling guests who antagonize each other (and occasionally Jack) had no impact.  His biggest stunt, a heart-wrenching and morally questionable interview with his dying wife, failed to move the ratings needle.  Now, with his contract nearly up, Jack is betting on this night’s show as the one that will save Night Owls from cancellation.

The first guest up is Christou, a psychic who claims he can commune with the dead.  (The  character’s name must be a nod to frequent Carson guest Criswell, a famously inaccurate prophet.)  Christou’s abilities are obviously an act predicated on having knowledge of the guests in advance, but Jack gamely plays along.  He has no choice because he wants to be known as the talk show host who revealed actual psychic phenomena on live TV.  Christou’s act takes a dark turn when Christou experiences an actual psychic connection with a ghost.  Christou is visibly shaken but Jack convinces him to remain on the show.

Jack’s next guest is Carmichael the Conjurer, a former magician turned skeptic.  (His antecedent is Carson guest James Randi.) As befitting the confrontational nature of the show, Carmichael states that Christou is a fake.  Still unwell from what happened at the end of his segment, Christou tries to leave the set but is prevented from doing so by the production staff.  Upset, he walks back to the stage and, after the two exchange words, projectile vomits at him.  (The movie includes plenty of nods to The Exorcist, the granddaddy of all exorcism movies.)

After cleaning things up, the next guests are Dr. June Ross-Mitchell and her subject Lilly D’Abo.  Lilly was formerly a member of a satanic cult and was the only survivor of the fire that destroyed their mansion.  June wrote a novel about her treatment of Lilly, focusing on how Lily is currently possessed by a demon.  Carmichael states that demonic possession is hokum, an accusation that June vehemently denies.  After some gentle arm-twisting from Jack (and cajoling from Carmichael), June agrees to have a session with Lilly’s demon before the audience on live TV.  What happens next is what you’d expect, but it’s what happens afterwards that elevates this movie above the average demonic possession movie.

After Lilly is restrained, June puts her into a trance and asks the demon to come forth.  Sure enough, Lilly begins talking in a distorted voice and has visible wounds on her face.  (She could pass for Regan’s possessed little sister.)  The demon inside Lilly asks Jack several personal questions about their shared past, which leaves Jack puzzled.  Lilly then levitates, and June manages to bring Lilly back.  Astonished at what happened on his show, Jack cuts to a commercial break.  Although her performance was shocking and disturbing, Jack is ecstatic.  June and Lilly are exactly what he needed to ensure that his show is renewed.  He’s ready to continue with a post-possession discussion, even though June and Jack’s sidekick Gus warn him not to.

After the break, Carmichael bluntly states that everything that June and Lilly did was an act.  He attempts to prove this by hypnotizing Gus, the studio audience and viewers at home.  At first, Carmichael makes it look like Gus is actually doing some horrible things, but when Jack asks that they review the video tape, Carmichael’s insistence on the power of mass hypnosis appears to be proven real.  The experience triggers something within Lilly, and things take a horrifying turn for the worst.  In the end, neither Jack nor the audience is sure what is real and what is imagined, despite the disturbing evidence on videotape.

I’m a pushover when it comes to exorcism movies.  It doesn’t take much to get me motivated to see them.  All I ask in return for my undivided attention is that the movie changes the formula a little bit to keep things interesting.  Late Night with the Devil does much more than that, though.  Instead of going down the well-worn path these movies usually take, with priests yelling bible verses at foul-mouthed, joint-popping  demons, this movie takes the possession/exorcism formula in a daring new direction.  Instead of guys in black bearing crosses and bibles, the story is led by three non-religious figures who engage with evil.  There’s television host Jack Delroy, the devil-may-care non-believer who will stop at nothing to become successful.  Carmichael the Conjurer is the cynical pro in the form of a master magician.  Lastly, the earnest and well-meaning Dr. June Ross-Mitchell represents the realm of science and medicine.  Additionally, the happenings feel fresh because everything takes place in an environment that hasn’t been utilized for this genre before.  (The Night Owl set looks like it was constructed from dingy leftovers from The Price is Right.)

While Late Night does go through the expected demonic possession paces, the movie cleverly uses the “cameras rolling” aspect to frame the horrific elements of the story to perfect effect.  The movie taps into how we, as viewers, can’t tear ourselves away from the sight of something horrifying playing out in real time.  It reminded me of the space shuttle challenger, 9/11 or the siege of the Waco Branch Davidian compound.  In each of those cases, I could have switched off the TV but I just couldn’t tear myself away.  This movie encapsulates that feeling perfectly, where everything builds to an outcome we highly anticipate, but still need to see it for our own eyes.

As Jack Dorsey, David Dastmalchian conjures up a character that struck me as a kinder, gentler Tom Snyder.  He strikes the perfect balance of charm and unctuousness that exemplifies the second-tier talk show host.  As an actor who has made a living out of bringing supporting characters to life, the movie could mark his eventual a turn to leading-man status.  I loved how the production design evoked a dingy Price is Right milieu.  As co-writers, Cameron and Colin Cairnes exhibit a pitch-perfect touch with talk show patter and backstage politicking.  As co-directors, they show how effective the jarring distortions that came with the videotape can be to evoke a mood that just can’t be duplicated in the digital era.  (Coupled with Skinamarink and Netflix’s Archive ‘81, analog recordings are making a comeback these days.)   Late Night works best when it holds true to its underlying concept, which it curiously gets away from at the very end.  There’s a highly effective and shocking climax, which is followed by an unwise detour that noticeably deflated the impact of what preceded it.  The movie goes out of its way to show how everything fits together when it should have either trusted the audience to do that, or left things unsettlingly vague (like The Exorcist).  Even still, Late Night with the Devil is a remarkable achievement for how it transforms a very familiar genre into something original and exciting.  Highly Recommended.

Analysis

If you’re still reading and you haven’t yet seen Late Night with the Devil, be prepared for spoilers.

Now, about that ending.

I was fully engrossed in Late Night’s incredible finale, where Lilly has become super possessed by electricity.  (I’m not sure what else to call it.)  She brutally kills June, Carmichael, and Gus.  At one point during the fireworks her head splits open and begins to glow.  Jack watches it all gobsmacked.  He’s shocked at what he’s unleashed on his guests, the crew and the audience,  and is terrified that he’ll be the next one to feel the wrath of Mr. Wriggles.  That is where the movie should have ended.  Instead, the movie takes a page out of 1408 and uses nightmare imagery to explain how everything fits together.  It’s an error in judgment on behalf of filmmakers 

Cameron and Colin Cairnes, but not a fatal one because the movie is too good to be undone by second-guessing.

(In case you either don’t remember 1408 or never saw it, the movie features John Cusack trapped in a hotel room while a demonic force plays with his mind.  Cusack’s character is tormented by visions that are incredibly realistic but not actually real.)

Late Night has sprinkled tantalizing clues about Jack’s mysterious past throughout the movie.  The most important one involves his membership in “The Grove”, a cult of rich men who performed curious rituals in the California woods.  Some members wore headpieces in the shape of an owl’s head.  The opening documentary segment implies that Jack’s membership in the cult may have helped him land a gig as a talk show host, followed by a huge contract.  When Lilly (as Mr. Wriggles) tells Jack that “We’ve met before, under the trees,” it confirms that The Grove was satanic in nature.  Was Szandor D’Abo, the leader of the cult who worshiped Abraxas, involved?  Possibly, but I don’t think it’s necessary to draw a straight line from one to the other.  (The dream sequence makes an explicit connection between the two.)  Jack clearly did what he needed to do to become a star and, as Szandor states in an interview, asking demons for help comes with a price.  That price apparently was paid by the death of Jack’s wife Madeleine, although a non-smoker contracting lung cancer isn’t as unrealistic as it seems.  (You may recall that this is what Andy Kauffman died of.)

With all of the above already on record, there is no reason for the movie to put Jack into a nightmarish dream sequence to explain conclusively why everything is happening.  The movie had done a superb job holding true to its concept, namely keeping the action relegated to the set of the show.  Switching from Lilly’s flaming, levitating body to a dream sequence didn’t work for me because it negated what was a powerful climax with a lot of unnecessary exposition.  The filmmakers should have left it to the audience to put two and two together while the credits were rolling.  In place of the dream sequence, the movie could have reached the desired ninety minute run time by including another segment that was mentioned at the outset.  They could have had a parade of costumes, for example.  There are people in the audience for that reason, including the mysterious person in a skeleton costume.  Or the movie could have had the singer perform.  I don’t recall how long the dream sequence was, but my guess was five minutes.  Either of those two options would have been better options than the superfluous dream sequence.

Oh, that Exorcist

Many demonic possession movies have been influenced by The Exorcist.  Few manage to do anything original with the parts they crib from, though.  Late Night has many direct references to The Exorcist, but it uses them in a way that doesn’t feel derivative.  For example, when Christou projectile vomits, it’s in response to Carmichael’s boorish behavior.  Lilly does a perfect impression of Regan, but the demon becomes violent because June used it as a circus act.  Late Night proves that it’s OK to steal from other movies, so long as you don’t come off as a cheap copy of the original.

Late Night also shows how, four years after The Exorcist was released in theaters, it was still fresh in everyone’s minds.  People like Jack are fascinated by the subject matter of June’s book, wondering if demonic possession is real or not.  When Gus realizes that he’s doomed, he comically tosses out the “Power of Christ compels you” line at Lilly  The movie reminded me that in Oh, God!, George Burns (as God) tells John Denver that a little girl threw up some pea soup and everyone believed it.  This movie wisely acknowledges how substantial the cultural impact The Exorcist was (and continues to be).

Spotlight on…David Dastmalchian

David Dastmalchian has made a career out of playing memorable supporting characters.  In the past several years he’s appeared in Dune, Oppenheimer, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, The Boogeyman, The Suicide Squad and Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.  He’s superb as the lead in Late Night, and one would think that his performance in the movie would result in more leading roles for him.  He certainly has a presence.  If you may recall, he had a small role as one of the Joker’s henchmen in The Dark Night, which was memorable even though he was only on screen for a few seconds.  If I were to put a finger on what makes Dastmalchian leave an impression in small roles, it would be his eyes.  He immediately registers as someone who is haunted, disturbed or both.  While he’s been a perfect fit for horror, I’m curious if he could pull off a romantic role.  His character had lost the love of his life to some unspeakable tragedy and has not been able to move on since.  While that was Jack’s character in Late Night, it was used for something entirely different than what I’m suggesting.  Maybe next time around, instead of dealing with levitating children, Dastmalchian will grapple with returning the text message from the pretty woman he met at a Starbucks.  Will he continue to live with the ghost of his lost love hovering over him, or finally live his life again?  Dastmalchian’s fans would love to find out.