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In Which I Read Too Much Into “Late Night with the Devil”

I watched the excellent Australian horror film Late Night With the Devil (2023) several months ago; we time our post today both because it’s the Halloween season and because certain late night hosts and comedians seems to have MADE a deal with the devil, making it all seem of a piece.

We’ll clean up that last bit first. Jimmy Fallon made the headlines the other day with his unsurprising declaration that he was going keep his head down, steer clear of politics, and seek to please “both sides” of his audience. But it just so happens that there is no equivalency here. One of those sides is deep into the project of reducing the world to cinders. They kill people, ruin lives, and fully intend to do far worse. Oh, yes, and lie about their opponents and what they would do, making the two sides seem “equal” if you don’t actually live in, or explore, the real world. So, no, you don’t actually get to make Fallon’s morally bankrupt choice and claim you’re taking the high road. You either FIGHT Fascists, or you’re on the Nazi road, full stop. Nobody made up that formulation, by the way. We arrived at it by studying the bloody history of the 20th century.

Meanwhile? There’s this f*cking Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia. Of all places for a stand-up comedy festival! Isn’t that the part of the world where they use slave labor, treat women as minors, and chop off your hand or stone you to death or whatever for criticizing the government? Death is one of the punishments for being gay, and forget about religious freedom. And yet they seek to have “the largest comedy festival in the world”? Fuck you! That belongs to America! I can’t think of anything less patriotic than assisting some repressive Medieval monarchy with the project of besting us. But here we are: Dave Chappelle, Aziz Ansari, Bill Burr, Wayne Brady, Louis C.K., Pete Davidson, Kevin Hart, Jeff Ross, and a bunch of others are going over to take part, in the manner of Charles Lindbergh’s useful idiocy for the Fuhrer. We know why Louis C.K. and Aziz Ansari took the gig; they’re cancelled in the U.S. I was tempted to give half a pass to the black, Muslim or Arab-American comedians (which is most of them), but, you know what? No. I’m with Marc Maron and David Cross. These guys know better. It would serve them right if they went over there and were summarily arrested for the content of their monologues and then treated to all the beneficence and liberality of Saudi justice. But of course, I don’t believe in that. I’d say America would have to rescue them in that case, but the present leadership of the U.S. clearly wants to be as much like the Saudi government as possible. Any other takers? Fantasy America, I guess?

We seem pretty far from the horror movie, don’t we? “Evil spirits” are surely the oldest human explanation we know of for the existence of evil in this world; therein lies most of the power of supernatural horror. Entire nations of “good” and “nice” people commit the most unspeakable acts. Every so often one of them cures polio or visits a friend in the hospital, and so we call that one our narrative. It’s what takes us from day to day. But underneath? El Diablo! He only manifests visually in our nightmares and in art but the symbolism in those cases is unmistakable, and very, very basic. You’d think more people would be able to translate it into everyday life: keep away from evil! It’s, like, evil! The problem is, in real life evil dissembles. It can be hard to spot. And there are always evil people around to fill the air with fog.

So, in Late Night with the Devil, that fog is show business. Once upon a time that would have been a distinctly reactionary tack for a film-maker to take. I mean, what is this, Jack Chick? But nowadays, as I’ve squawked a few times, things are more than a little topsy-turvy. So I’m open to a story in which a late night host opens the door to hell. IRL, it looks like Jimmy Fallon playing with Trump’s hair.

The entirety of Late Night with the Devil takes place on the set of a fictional American late night show called Night Owls with Jack Delroy in 1977. Film-makers Colin and Cameron Cairnes are both Australian and too young to have watched television in the ’70s, so their vaunted “period accuracy” in this film is actually pretty off, to my mind, but it is so in a way that strengthens the film, for it makes the entire experience feel uncanny and dream-like. It reminds me of that dream-space in Twin Peaks, with the checkered floor and the red walls and the backward-talking little person. Something is odd and wrong in this space that we can’t put our finger on.

Among them is the entire premise. There wasn’t really a thing called “late night” on American TV in the 1970s, at least not as a category of programming worth talking about. The time slot had not yet been tamed. NBC had the venerable Tonight Show, and the even later Tomorrow Show. The latter show had no studio audience. It was just host Tom Snyder, his guest, and a bleary-eyed crew. As of 1975, there was also Saturday Night Live on Saturdays, but it was still considered an experiment at the time at which this movie is set. As for the other networks, their many attempts to compete with The Tonight Show all failed (which is referred to in this film). But there was no serious effort to BEAT The Tonight Show. The best you could hope for is to survive for more than a few months. Otherwise American television in that time slot remained pretty primitive. The networks didn’t program stuff. Usually, local stations aired old movies or infomercials, and such like. Not to harp on this, but just to clarify, especially for young ‘uns. This movie actually gains effectiveness by taking place in this weird alternate universe.

Similarly the host Jack Delroy, played by David Dastmalchian, also feels strange. He doesn’t seem like a comedian, at least not a funny one. The American talk show he reminds me of the most is the long-forgotten Mike Douglas, a kind of earnest, good looking charmer with lots of air between his ears. The Cairnes brothers have mentioned Australia’s Don Lane, whom of course I have no knowledge of. It’s been a while since we’ve had a talk show host who wasn’t a comedian in the U.S. Was Oprah the last one? Anyway, that’s probably pretty damning in and of itself. There used to be many of them (mostly drawn from journalism).

At any rate, this Jack Delroy didn’t get where he was because of his talent, but because he sold his soul to the devil at one of these annual retreats that rich assholes attend so they decide the fate of planet. This, of course, is one of the most realistic things about the movie. Millionaires (and now billionaires) have been doing this for decades, typically at mountain resorts where they can pretend they are Gods on Olympus, deciding Presidents, Senators, laws, policies, and so forth while smoking cigars, eating caviar, and (in the case of Epstein’s island) raping underage girls. If Satan doesn’t attend these things personally, he’s there in spirit.

The premise of the film is that it’s the Halloween episode of Night Owls, and the guests are all sort of spooky. One is a psychic named Christou (Fayssal Bazzi). Another is a magician turned skeptic (Ian Bliss), clearly based on The Amazing Randi (and apparently Randi did have some kind of kerfuffle with Don Lane on one occasion). And for the entree, a parapsychologist and author (Laura Gordon) along with her charge, a 13 year old survivor of a cult’s mass suicide, who is said to have special “powers”, played by Ingrid Torelli. What ensues as the episode plays out is a sort of mash-up of The Exorcist, Paranormal Activity, Carrie, and, well Late Night.

I’m not going to spoil it for you. I will say though that I really enjoyed the experience (hence, this post), it added up to something less than a movie. That’s not to dismiss it, though. What I want to suggest that it would be a much better experience if the story were told in another form. It would, for example, be amazing as a live stage play, especially since it is essentially told in real time, and is full of special effects that would be completely dazzling and entirely achievable performed live. OR, equally good, would be to present it as live television, or live streaming, where we could enjoy the effects the same way, warts and all. The movie is often referred to as an example of the found footage genre, but that doesn’t quite capture it. It has too much “show” about it, which keeps you on your toes wondering if the levitations, and telekinesis and other things depicted are stunts being perpetrated by the characters, as the skeptic repeatedly charges. Obviously, if it were, there’d be no horror film. But it does feel more like an “anecdote” than a feature-length film. As a live event, I would forgive that more.

In spite of the period inaccuracies I mentioned, the creators have done a tremendous job of making both the natural and supernatural elements seem real. The clothes and sets look right, and so does the demonic possession! And (because I’m a gullible sucker) there were several moments early in the film where I wondered what I watching, and whether it was an actual documentary. If you don’t bring that child-like attitude to movie watching sometimes, I don’t see how you derive any pleasure in it.

As to whether Satan was literally involved? It’s possible. I only just noticed that the movie was partially funded by the United Arab Emirates.

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