Anything can happen on live idiot box . That honest-to-god axiom still hold true today — just askChris Rock . But it was perhaps specially true in the seventies , when America stayed glue to The First Television War , when a Florida news anchorended her life on the air , and when the Johnny Carsons of the world more on a regular basis circulate live from their informal studio set , goosing viewership with the implied teaching to expect the unexpected . Late Night with the Devil , an laughable if never entirely convincing ( or especially terrific ) practice in find - footage spookiness , winds back to that bygone era of high-pitched - conducting wire showmanship to suppose a dark realization of springy TV ’s promise : What if the rolling cameras of a late-’70s midnight talk of the town show shine something rightfully shocking into home ?

The film producer , Aussie siblings Cameron and Colin Cairnes , are apparent aficionados of TV Land kitsch , their own country ’s and the American kind . They ’re hooked on the blithe , cheeky luridness of ’ 70s late night — how nocturnal emcees receive a world of weird into their on a regular basis scheduled programming , becoming circus ringleaders without sacrificing their heedful showbiz poise . Late Night with the Deviltaps into the anything - goes hucksterism of that eld and then tie it to a more minacious tune of coetaneous culture . The intend impression is of a nightly mesh raw material obsess by the ghosts of Charles Manson , the Amityville execution , andThe exorciser .

The movie ’s gimmick is that it present itself as an uncensored re - ventilation of a nightmarish TV result : the chilling final installment of a fictional ’ 70s talk show calledNight Owls . The host , Jack Delroy ( David Dastmalchian , the lanky , eccentric fictional character worker who ’s logged metre in the trenches of Marvel , DC , andDune ) , is a Midwest go - getter haunted by both the recent personnel casualty of his wife to malignant neoplastic disease and by the lose war for eyeballs he ’s waged against Carson . We learn all of this through a simulated - documentary film prefatorial collage . The principal attractor is the full programme he lines up to save his critically acclaim , evaluation - challenge show — a sweeps - week Halloween special that pits several paranormal expert against each other and which take on out for us in near existent - fourth dimension , complete with black - and - white , behind - the - scenes interludes during the cuts to commercials .

For a while , the moving picture catch by on the fun of its flashback pantomime — how it invokes the spirit of what it ’s imitate , a ’ 70s variety show window of bandleader banter , live interviews , and Nielsen - favorable stunts . Delroy ’s panel include a charlatan medium ( Fayssal Bazzi ) , knead the live studio hearing with his living room magic before possibly wiretap into real spectral risk ; a parapsychologist ( Laura Gordon ) who appears with the subject of her Holy Writ , a purportedly possessed teen ( Ingrid Torelli ) with serious Regan MacNeil vibes ; and , most entertainingly , a former magician ( Ian Bliss ) who ’s given up his moneymaking racket for the perhaps even - more - lucrative business of expose supernatural bunk . About the best compliment you could compensate the film is that it successfully apes insomniac shabu telecasting ; even without the inevitable diabolical intrusions , the brush of personalities would make for honest nightcap viewing .

Often , Late Night with the Devilresembles nothing so much as one of the mock - doc section from the ongoingV / H / Sseries , extend with some success to have distance . As far as aesthetics go , it ’s much more convincing when mimic the look , feel , and videotape grain of ’ 70s post - primetime than when go past itself off as a documentary about the events . Nitpickers might get hung up on stray inconsistencies of output design , composition , or performance ; the illusion of something genuinely plucked from the air of the Me Decade falter . It does n’t help that the Cairnes brothers eventually break formatting , as if uncertain how to pitch the psychodramatic crescendo without pushing past the restriction of their doomed talk - show conceit .

As in some of the best found footage thrillers , fromThe Blair Witch Projectto the firstParanormal bodily function , the horror springs from the foolishness of trifling with dark force from behind a tv camera . Delroy , performing his seemingly harmless , seasonally appropriate adaptation of it - bleed - it - conduct amusement , has made like Guy Woodhouse ofRosemary ’s Babyand invent a rather actual pact with the showbiz underworld gods . Of course , the fame he ’ll accomplish is very much of the rascal ’s paw variety show . In so much asLate Night with the Devilworks as a admonitory narration of careerism at any cost , Dastmalchian is the reason . The blockbuster bit - player shows us the sweaty desperation and mounting apprehensiveness beneath his impresario sincerity in perhaps his meaty use ever . His portrayal of a Carson wannabee coming undone is the most persuasive thing about the flick , its real touching .

Still , the ending is a letdown . Late Night with the Devilbuilds and form , promising the inevitable moment when all of Delroy ’s dope - tube cheese — his jokey communions and myth - wear out debate — will burst forth into real peril . That ’s the whole hook of the pic , but when it comes time to deliver , the orgasm is mere fume - and - mirror funhouse pandemonium : an all - too - brief saturnalia of havoc that , for all its nifty practical effects work , ca n’t populate up to what the ominous framing gimmick has promised . It intermit the moving picture ’s go , shattering the mother wit of reality . Anything can come about on live TV , but possibly expect such spontaneousness from a horror movie about it is a ticket to dashing hopes .