MOVIE REVIEW! - 'Late Night with the Devil'

'Late Night with the Devil' (2024)

I do try and stay away from spoilers in my reviews, but I do have to talk about the film to a certain degree, so this is your SPOILER WARNING! If you want to go in fresh but you just want to check out my rating, just scroll to the bottom, take a look and get out. If you want to continue on to the review, I hope you enjoy the article!

“Late Night with the Devil” follows David Dastmalchian as Jack Delroy, the host of a successful late night talk show though it still trails behind Johnny Carson. With his show on the line and the fact that Jack wants to finally beat Carson in the ratings, Jack decides to bring on various guests that have something to do with the paranormal or the strange. It is Halloween, after all, and it’s also the height of sweeps week.

The guests include a mentalist, Christou (Fayssal Bazzi) and a skeptic magician Carmichael the Conjurer (Ian Bliss). Then there is also a parapsychologist and author Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and her seemingly troubled subject Lilly (Ingrid Torelli). Oh… and supposedly Lily is possessed by a demon due to being raised in and rescued from a cult.

Throughout the show, strange things start to occur and it could be that Lilly may actually be telling the truth after all. I really wanted to like “Late Night with the Devil”. I truly did. In fact, it was actually the film I was looking forward to the most this weekend, but I was ultimately disappointed.

Jack Delroy is ready to talk to the demon in 'Late Night with the Devil'!

Don’t get me wrong, there are some good highlights. The movie is presented as a found footage film where we are told we are being shown the footage from the master tapes. Also, when they cut to commercial, they switch to black-and-white cameras that document what was happening behind-the-scenes when the show wasn’t on the air.

The format is unique, but I don’t feel that they really did anything with what is an original idea. I’ll give them credit that they did recreate the genuine feel of a late night talk show from the ‘70s, but that’s about it as far as the setup for the film is concerned.

Another highlight are the performances. Dastmalchian is a solid lead here and plays a character that you want to learn more about as the movie progresses. His supporting actors are also great, including Torelli as the demon-possessed Lilly. Even when Lilly is supposedly in her normal state, she is so troubled and socially awkward that you’re almost instantly creeped out by her.

Lilly does bring about the few moments where I actually did feel the horror. Finally, going back to the story as a whole, I also felt that the third act kind of fell apart for me. Once it was over, I just kind of felt, “Meh.”

Ultimately, the biggest problem I had with the movie is that I just didn’t find it to be all that scary. Sure, it has its moments and I can see people liking this movie. However, it didn’t really do anything new or exciting for me as a horror fan and, at the end of the day, that’s what killed it for me. I wasn’t upset that I had watched it, but I was disappointed.