150 Word Review: 'Late Night With The Devil' (2023)
And now a word from our sponsor, Satan
Vomit, levitation, telekinesis—yup, it's a movie about Hollywood’s favorite fiend, Lucifer. Late Night with the Devil is a short, punchy, high-concept occult thriller set in the '70s that’s more stylish than scary.
The movie is a witch's brew of mockumentary, gross-out 'found footage' frights, and demon possession. It works best when it's like a stage play: we're watching an actual video of struggling late-night talk show Night Owl’s special Halloween episode, stacked with psychics, skeptics, and a little girl who can commune with the dark lord. Everything goes wrong. As the recently-widowed host Jack Delroy, David Dastmalchian perfectly captures showbiz smarm. His sidekick, goofy Rhys Auteri, is the only voice of reason.
Directors Colin and Cameron Cairnes have a sense of time and place—the apocalyptic post-Nixon years—and respect the flicks of that era. They reference The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror and a personal fave, 1976's Squirm, about man-eating earthworms.