Capsule Review: Late Night with the Devil (2024) – A Creepy Mesh of Found-Footage Horror and Dark Comedy

Found-footage horror may have been an overused genre but like it or not, it’s here to stay. We still get some good, even above-average efforts in recent years such as One Cut of the Dead and Host. Adding to the list is Late Night with the Devil from Australian siblings Cameron and Colin Cairnes.

Shot primarily in a 4:3 aspect ratio to evoke the old-school look and feel of the 1970s, where the story takes place during the era, Late Night with the Devil begins with Michael Ironside providing a voiceover narration in black-and-white, documentary-style footage summarising the rise and fall of a late-night TV host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian). His show Night Owls with Jack Delroy may have been a hit with audiences but no matter how hard he tries, his TV ratings still trailed behind The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

We soon learn a tragedy struck upon his wife, Madeleine (Georgina Haig) and Jack has since become a shadow of his former self. In a bid to make a comeback after his show’s significant dip in ratings, he returns to host an episode of a Halloween special during the fateful night in 1977. Presented in a found-footage style of a taped live event, the particular episode sees Jack introduce the audience to a few guests including psychic Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), ex-magician-turned-cynic Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss), as well as parapsychologist June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), a young girl who survived the mass suicide. The latter is also June’s patient, who turns out to have a demonic entity nicknamed “Mr Wriggles” possessing her body.

Cameron and Colin Cairnes eschew the typical use of jump scares in favour of a dread-inducing tension that builds up slowly but surely while maintaining a deliberate pace. The siblings also successfully incorporated a mix of macabre horror (The Exorcist-like moment of Lilly’s demonic possession comes to mind) and cynical humour (the introduction of Ian Bliss’s Carmichael Haig as a sceptic specialises in debunking supernatural phenomena) that sustains my interest throughout the movie’s 93-minute length. Not to mention the movie’s washed-out grainy aesthetic and the VHS-style television programming are all on point here.

The cast is equally great, notably David Dastmalchian’s scene-stealing lead performance as Jack Delroy. He has a knack for playing eccentric or creepy roles in the past as seen in The Suicide Squad, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and last year’s The Boogeyman. But in Late Night with the Devil, he is given the chance to stretch his acting ability to play a sympathetic character desperately trying to save his struggling late-night talk show from cancellation. The rest of the cast such as Ian Bliss and Ingrid Torelli deliver respectively solid supporting turns as the obnoxious Carmichael Haig and the spooky Lilly.

Then comes the bonkers third act, which culminates into an all-hell-breaks-loose finale as the Cairnes siblings effectively combine gore, violence and lo-fi special effects. It’s not outright scary but it sure delivers the intended creepiness of the movie’s ill-fated taped live event.

Late Night with the Devil is currently streaming on Shudder.