This review may contain spoilers.
In Late Night with the Devil, directors Cameron and Colin Cairnes deliver more than just a clever genre twist. They conjure a richly symbolic, savagely sharp critique of ambition, media, and the corrosive cost of success. Taking place a 1970s late-night talk show that go’s spectacularly off the rails. The film offers a darkly satirical, supernatural exploration of one man’s descent into literal and figurative hell in pursuit of relevance and to defeat the evil Johnny Carson.
At the center of this descent is Jack Delroy (played by David Dastmalchian), a charismatic host desperate to reclaim his fading fame. Delroy’s show, Night Owls, becomes the battleground for something far greater than audience share. As the film escalates in intensity, so too does its central thesis: what happens when ambition overshadows morality, and the thirst for success blinds one to the cost?
The symbolism is thick and deliberate. The talk show set becomes a crucible of real horror, suggesting that the mask of entertainment often conceals profound darkness. Delroy’s studio audience, ravenous for spectacle, reflects society’s complicity in rewarding exploitation and sensationalism over substance or truth. As guests are paraded out, including psychics, skeptics, and a young girl possessed by a literal demon, the boundaries between performance and possession begin to blur. The show becomes a Faustian circus, and Jack is its ringmaster.
The film’s violence is not gratuitous, it’s meaningful and earned. The brutality serves as a metaphor for the internal rot caused by Delroy’s choices. His soul is eroded piece by piece, not in one grand gesture, but through the quiet justifications and small betrayals that success demands. The devil isn’t just the supernatural entity lurking backstage, it’s the abstract concept of unchecked ambition, cloaked in glitz, admiration, and applause.
The idea of selling your soul isn’t treated as a theatrical metaphor; it’s a tangible transaction, and the film makes clear that the price is always higher than imagined. Delroy isn’t a villain, he’s a sad tragic figure. A man who, in his fear of irrelevance and anonymity, opened a door he could no longer close.
This is where the film becomes most brutal: not just in blood, but in truth. It tells us that the devil doesn’t always come with horns. Sometimes, he wears a smile, and holds a microphone.
In Late Night with the Devil, the Cairnes brothers have crafted a rare horror film. One that scares with both spectacle and substance. It’s a searing, sad, and stylish reminder that the pursuit of success without conscience may very well lead to a place where the lights never turn off.
