54836: Late Night with the Devil

I miss Johnny Carson. I miss the freewheeling, booze-soaked, and nicotine-stained party he created. As a kid, watching him late at night felt so transgressive, like I was getting a glimpse into an adult world I wasn't supposed to see. Late Night with the Devil takes that idea and runs absolutely wild with it.

From writer/director duo Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes, Late Night with the Devil has more story frames than Roshomon and winds up being just as unreliable in its take on the truth. The conceit is that we're watching a documentary about a Satanic cult from the 1970s, and part of that documentary is a long-lost late night TV broadcast from a Halloween episode that included a demonic possession, and part of that TV show footage is realtime behind-the-scenes footage of the studio during commercial breaks.

The broadcast/BTS footage drops us into the frenetic and exciting world of live television in a very real and grounded way (once you get past the idea that they somehow managed to capture perfectly lit and mic-ed footage on the studio floor during a time when camera equipment was decidedly un-nimble), which is important when the narrative dives into an insane, supernatural horror scenario. The production design is spot-on for the late 70s, and the atmosphere captures the breathless hucksterism of EVENT TELEVISION which promised to reveal, live on the air, some incredible and unbelievable truth.

Viewers of a certain age will recall alien autopsies and unsealed gangster vaults, and other attempts by news programs to rewrite reality, live and on the air. Very rarely did the earth shift under our collective feet, but the Cairnes duo do a great job of tapping into the idea that it could happen, and that ambitious TV folk would die trying.

Late Night with the Devil carries this concept to a terrifying, satisfying conclusion. Over the course of the show, the Cairneses trot out a mentalist, a skeptic, and a young girl suffering from demonic possession, all of it building to a gory, twisting, mind-bending climax. And on that level, it operates much like any other found-footage horror film. Underneath, the story is about ambition, grief, and pacts with the devil. David Dastmalchian is perfectly cast as the affable host with a dark side, delivering pathos and humor in turn. He's a joy to watch, as always, as we follow him from the cusp of total ratings/career domination all the way down to just below rock bottom, all in the space of one TV broadcast.

On its most fundamental level, late night TV is predictable. There's a format. The format gets followed. Viewers go to sleep. It's in the moments when the show bucks its format that things really get interesting. Late Night with the Devil is the biggest buck I've ever seen the format take, and it's an amazing thing to see. I suggest you see it, too.