Review #350: Late Night with the Devil (2023)

October 2025 Holiday Horror Review #23 - Late Night with the Devil (2023)

[Unfortunately this movie does not seem to be streaming for free anywhere, but it is included with many streaming subscriptions.]

Late Night with the Devil is a film about a 70s-era late night TV host, Jack Delroy, who is back on the air after a year-long hiatus following his wife's unsuccessful battle with cancer. Taking place on Halloween night, the start of Sweeps Week on network television, Delroy's show is hoping to make quite a buzz by hosting a number of paranormal-themed guests including a psychic channeler, a magician whose goal is to debunk supernatural claims, and a girl who was rescued from a cult and who is said to be possessed by an evil spirit she calls "Mr. Wriggles". The night starts off as planned with a moderate ratings turnout, but when Jack agrees to interview "Mr. Wriggles" on-air, this broadcast begins to make every viewer question their beliefs about the natural world.

I've seen this movie several times before, and from the start I was intrigued by the premise. This is, for lack of a better term, a found-footage movie: the move we are watching, with a couple small exceptions, is presented as the actual master recording of the talk show recorded on Halloween in 1977. (It has a few other parts added in- an introduction segment, a few clips from behind-the-scenes that I can't really rationalize the existence of within the found-footage narrative, and a weird mind-trip section at the end that I will talk about later.) I have spoken many times about how I generally dislike found-footage movies, due to most people using the format as a way to cut costs and be excused for doing a lazy job; oh how differently I would feel if more filmmakers actually used the medium to do something like this, instead of just writing a story where a person is inexplicably recording all the time and then calling it a day!

I love this movie. It's not perfect (I'll get to some specific issues in a bit) but I love the setting, the aesthetic, the vibe of the show, and I love all of the tiny little details thrown in both to make it look like a genuine 70s talk show, as well as to make it subtly unsettling. I love how this movie weaves real-world current events of the time with fictional events, as well as with fictional events that are direct analogs for real-world cultural touch points of the time; it really makes the whole presentation feel like a real, believable broadcast. I love how the psychic Christou completely breaks character the moment he seemingly has a "real" communication from beyond. (The fact that he still goes along with it, begging for someone to accept the message, is a tiny detail but it instantly shows you a huge amount of insight into this guy's character- even though he is clearly a huckster, I would bet money the writers intended this to show that he actually did have some psychic ability, that he quickly set on the back burner once he realized he could just cold read people and make tons of money.) I love how Lilly is naturally staring straight into the camera at all times, as if she has some sort of knowledge or awareness nobody else on stage has. This movie has several blink-and-you'll-miss-them scares in the background of shots (like when they're running back the tape and Jack sees a grainy image of his wife's ghost standing behind him- there is like a two-second shot of him back on stage and his wife's hand is actually visible on his shoulder). And certain segments, like when Carmichael hypnotizes Gus, are insanely creepy and and are guaranteed to grip you in the moment.

Like I said, though, it's not all good. I get that Lilly is meant to be creepy but I don't think the actress playing her is very good. She basically has a deadpan affect to her voice which is fine when she is supposed to be an unsettling little girl talking about the demon inside her, but she speaks the same way even when she is trying to show emotion. She could be begging for help but she still sounds like she's just reading lines off a page. Also, I'm a little annoyed at how this movie portrays the skeptic character Carmichael. Obviously he's based on James Randi, a real-world magician who set up an organization dedicated to debunking supernatural claims (complete with a check for a large sum of money he carried around to present to anyone who could prove the existence of the supernatural). I've seen a handful of shows and movies caricaturize James Randi, and the problem with them all is that since these are all stories where the supernatural is true, they simply can't portray their skeptic character as a level-headed individual interested solely in following the evidence where it leads- no, they have to make him an arrogant, pompous contrarian who ultimately gets his comeuppance. 

And my main issue with this movie (that I am a bit conflicted about) are the beginning and ending. The ending deviates from the found-footage format for a bit as we more or less see into Jack Delroy's psyche as he experiences an event beyond his comprehension, and I really wonder whether it would have been better if the movie just cut to black after the scene where they re-watch the footage of Lilly's interview. I get that the final section of the film is sort of supposed to set up a big shocking thing that happens at the very end of the movie (I'm being vague as to avoid spoilers) but if the movie just cut to black at the point I said, and then had a title card explaining something like "Police arrived at the set and found many people dead. The footage was confiscated as evidence and has not been seen publicly until today" I think it would have been a much stronger ending than the weird mind-screw segment we got instead. And if we're cutting out the ending, why not cut out the opening as well? The film starts with several minutes of exposition, so why not cut that out and just work that into the script more naturally later on (if it even needs to be there in the first place)? I feel like this movie was really close to being a perfect 10/10 but the ending really mucks things up, and it wouldn't have been too hard to fix.

Anyway, I think this is a fantastic film and you should all go watch it if you can.

Overall Rating: 9/10 Checks for $500,000

Fitting Coincidence: According to the distributor, on March 24th, 2024 (two days after it was released) this movie made $666,666 at the box office!