Late Night With the Devil (2023) – Review

Quick Thoughts – Grade – B+ – Directed and edited by Cameron and Colin Cairnes, this low-budget horror film packs a fun punch and features a wonderful lead performance from David Dastmalchian. If you’re a fan of single location horror films that feature a fun spin on possession horror, I totally recommend this movie.

I love IFC horror films. Between Skinamarink, Hatching, Come True, The Vigil, Relic, The Devil’s Candy, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, The Babadook, Berberian Sound Studio, Antichrist, The Human Centipede and Kill List, IFC has found a way to unleash interesting and innovative horror films on the masses. One of the best things about Late Night With the Devil is how it gives horror hound David Mastmalchian a chance to headline a film in a genre he loves. Dastmalchian describes himself as “a monster kid, a horror nerd deep in my dark and twisted little heart,” and it’s an article he wrote for Fangoria about horror hosts that got him the Late Night With the Devil gig.  He’s been great in Prisoners, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, The Boogeyman, The Belko Experiment and Bird Box, but seeing him play a struggling late night host looking to boost his ratings with supernatural hijinks is a delight. 

What’s great about Late Night With the Devil is how straight-forward the story is. There are some twists and turns that take place over the fateful night, but by keeping things simple inside the television studio set, the Cairnes brothers allow the actors to shine in their roles. Without spoiling anything, the movie revolves around a desperate late-night talk show host named Jack Delroy (Dastmalchian), who hosts Night Owls with Jack Delroy – a popular show that lives in the shadow of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Jack has been recently widowed, and after a short hiatus, he returns for his sixth season with more controversial topics in an attempt to gain some viewers. Jack is obviously broken and shattered from the loss of his wife, and in his attempt to regain his lost magic he makes several bad decisions that lead to a night of supernatural mayhem. The movie focuses on the taping of a Halloween-themed episode that involves a parapsychologist named Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and her patient Lilly (Ingrid Torrelli), who survived the mass suicide of a religious cult and is most certainly possessed by some form of evil entity. Joining them are a magic skeptic named Carmichael the Conjurer (Ian Bliss) who questions Dr. June’s tactics, and is hell bent on proving that Lilly’s possession is a hoax. What follows is a trip towards inevitable destruction that is equal parts fun, scary and inventive. 

With a current box office haul of $6.5 million (which is huge for IFC), and a bit of AI controversy, the movie has gotten a lot of press and it’s nice seeing the tiny-budgeted horror movie make waves internationally. You can tell that Cameron and Colin love horror movies (and their interviews prove this) and this low-budget homage to the cinema of the 1970s is absolutely worth a watch and the 7.5 IMDb and 97% Tomatometer scores reflect the quality of the movie. 

Final thoughts – Watch it now!