Late Night with the Devil

Directed by Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes, Late Night with the Devil follows a 1970s talk-show host (David Dastmalchian’s Jack Delroy) as he experiences spooky happenings during a Halloween-night taping of his program. It’s an almost inherently captivating premise that is, at the outset, employed to thoroughly successful and compelling effect by Cairnes and Cairnes, as the filmmakers, armed with their own screenplay, kick the proceedings off with a fascinating prologue that effective establishes the central character and his professional (and personal) exploits – with the movie, from there, seguing into a opening stretch focused on the real-time airing of the aforementioned episode. The compelling atmosphere is heightened by the authenticity with which Cairnes and Cairnes have infused the broadcast (ie this feels like something that could’ve aired in 1977), and while the found-footage illusion is admittedly broken during the commercial-break sequences, Late Night with the Devil sustains its tone of dread and suspense right up until it reaches a progressively (and disappointingly) larger-than-life third act – which, when coupled with a fairly unsatisfying final few minutes, confirms the picture’s place as a mostly stirring endeavor that probably should’ve topped out at about an hour.

*** out of ****