Late Night with the Devil
2023 Directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes
Horror Marathon 2024 Day 20 Film 39
A late show host invites a former satanic cult member on his show to increase his ratings on Halloween night. That goes about as well as you could expect.
This is all framed through watching some old 70s videotape of the night- something that both endears and creates stylistic fun for the film. The whole picture has a fuzzy feeling, and weird things start to show through distorted picture clarity. Apart from that the film splits the events like a late night TV act- almost feeling like a small anthology of horror moments interlinked sparsely. Like most late night shows though- it’s hit and miss to how effective each segment is. Some spoilers…
First there’s a whole backstory that gives away the host’s ties to the Grove- a real hedonist party that rich white politicians and businessmen get to get naked with each other in the woods and play pagan-ish rituals. The other talk show guests are a classic mentalist and non believer. Unfortunately both of these characters have one dimension. The skeptic stays on one consistent questioning throughout the film that gets annoying..
By the time we get to the Dr and the girl cult member I was expecting a little more involvement with how they set up the cult like some doomsday cult/Waco disaster. Which is odd considering the Manson family murders are never mentioned in the film either. Why a Dr would bring someone on a talk show that she knows has a split demonic personality is beyond me- making the whole film feel like a What If? TV episode where one wonders what if the Exorcist was on a talk show?
Knowing about this demonic entity- you’d also suppose that the Dr would have at least invited a priest in case something went wrong. If goofy, if not totally incredulous then when the movie goes full tilt on the gore and scares- which at least have a sense of fun absurdity. I liked the mentalist utilizing hypnotic suggestion in a 4th wall breaking way for additional shock- but I’m wondering if the script got a little too cute in trying to adhere to a sense of making a TV show production.
During the breaks nothing really happens to enhance the tension of the film- only showing some backstage gossip and talk about the business. For the finale the TV host has to face how much he sacrificed to be there, but it doesn’t feel like much of this has been really developed. It’s a jumbled mess of imagery and hints at the cult of the Owl and we’re simply left with the aftermath. They could have had a cheezy host on the outtro explaining things to adhere more to the documentary show that it sets up as well. As is, it’s just a script that feels more like an outline board of ideas than an actual plot.