Late Night with the Devil (2023)
There's a particular kind of dread that comes from watching something go horribly wrong on live television. Late Night with the Devil, directed by Cameron and Colin Cairnes, understands that completely, and it weaponises it to genuinely unsettling effect. I went in completely blind, as I always try to, and while I didn't get the immediate grip I was hoping for, what unfolds over the course of its tight 90-minute runtime is a film that earns your patience in the best possible way.
Here's my honest take on the first half: it takes too long to get going. The Cairnes brothers spend a significant chunk of the film setting up this fictional 1993 late-night talk show, building out the world, the characters, the format. And look, I understand what they were doing. They wanted you fully inside that broadcast before things started to crack. But knowing why a slow start exists doesn't make sitting through it any less frustrating in the moment. For a film running under 90 minutes, you'd expect it to hit the ground a bit harder.
That said, I have to hand it to them: the payoff is absolutely worth the wait. The final 30 minutes completely sell the entire movie. The gears shift just enough that everything you thought was meandering setup suddenly reveals itself as a deliberate, creepy trap. It's one of those rare experiences where you finish watching and immediately reassess the whole thing with fresh eyes. The slow burn stops feeling like a weakness and starts feeling like the point.
A big part of why it works is David Dastmalchian. This was actually the first time I've seen him carry a film as the lead, and fair play to him, he's brilliant. He plays the desperate talk show host with such commitment and believability that you're never not convinced by him. He anchors the entire film, and without that performance at the centre, the whole thing would fall apart. The wider ensemble is pretty decent too, which makes one particular exception all the more jarring. Rhys Auteri, I'm sorry, just dragged me out of the immersion every single time he appeared on screen. His delivery felt so out of step with everyone else that it kept puncturing the unsettling broadcast atmosphere the directors were working so hard to build. It's a noticeable weak link in what is otherwise a well-cast film.
Atmospherically, though, Late Night with the Devil gets a lot right. It taps into that live-broadcast dread without leaning entirely on cheap jump scares, and for the most part the practical and visual effects genuinely add to the tension rather than undercutting it. There's one glaring exception: certain electricity effects that are, to put it plainly, laughably bad. Not "charmingly rough around the edges" bad. More like "please, just cut those entirely" bad. They stuck out like a sore thumb against an otherwise well-crafted visual approach, and I winced every time they appeared.
But here's the thing: those stumbles don't sink the film. The sluggish opening and the odd weak performance and the dodgy effects all exist alongside something genuinely effective, something that gets under your skin in the way good horror should. I really liked this film. It's not flawless, and I won't pretend otherwise, but the killer third act earns back every bit of goodwill it spent getting there. It's a cracking watch, deeply creepy in the right moments, and held together by a lead performance that deserves a lot more attention than it's received.
Three and a half stars. Not a masterpiece, but an absolutely worthy way to spend 90 minutes with the lights off.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2023 | Watched: 2026-06-11
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Shudder · Shudder Amazon Channel
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Hulu · Philo · AMC Plus Apple TV channel · AMC+ Amazon Channel
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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