By Peg Aloi

The Cairnes brothers explore how the analog media trickery of a bygone era may illuminate our current obsession with what is real.

Late Night With the Devil, written, directed and edited by Cameron and Colin Cairnes. Screening at AMC Causeway 13 and AMC Boston Common 19.

A scene featuring David Dastmalchian in Late Night With the Devil. Photo: IFC Films/Shudder

No doubt there will soon be a new subgenre term for whatever Late Night with the Devil is, even though its style and subject matter are drawn from familiar enough sources. Partly that’s because the film is very good at what it does: this inventive fake documentary is also a stunning period piece and a chilling horror thriller. Australian sibling duo Cameron and Colin Cairnes have made previous films experimenting with found footage formats, but have upped the ante with this occult-themed gem. On the one hand, this is a sensational “tell all” exposé about a late night TV host, Jack Delroy (David Daltmachian), host of the popular talk show Night Owls, whose lightning bolt career is said to be as controversial as it was legendary. But the narrative is also a hotly anticipated reveal of that show’s  fabled final episode — now presented uncut and including behind-the-scenes footage never seen before. The chaotic, terrifying Halloween night broadcast of Night Owls is introduced as a fairly recent event, but viewers are given the distinct feeling that what we’re about to witness is an event that changed television forever.

The brief prologue establishes an impressively retro, low-budget vibe, with suitably grainy footage, clumsy editing, and a stentorian male voiceover. Jack’s meteoric rise to fame and catastrophic fall into misfortune are briefly described, alongside rumors that he was inducted into a secret occult society. The Faustian intimations are obvious (did he sell his soul for fame?) and they lead to speculation about the tragic death of his beautiful wife Madeleine (Georgina Haig), whose terminal illness (televised, of course) is linked to Jack’s martyrdom and quest for redemption.

Once we start watching the fateful “episode,” all the requisite 1977 hairstyles, fashions, music, and design elements arrive. Apparently, Night Owls was the Tonight Show of its era. The show’s producer Leo (Josh Quong Tart) is a sharp but smarmy relic of those halcyon disco days, with his curly locks, sunglasses, and monomaniacal quest for high ratings. There’s even a nerdy sidekick in the Ed McMahon mold named Gus (Rhys Auteri), decked out in a little red cape and horns for the holiday. There’s a naughty sense of glee in the air, as the show’s crew anticipates what will be an unforgettable night — but not for the reasons they’re expecting. Of course we, watching, already know something dark is about to go down, and that’s why we’ve come, for a mix of satire, comedy, and horror. But for an audience with virtual mountains of archival media at their fingertips — many unfamiliar with the world of predigital videotape — the existence of a “never before seen” episode of a one-time only broadcast is a somewhat arcane narrative conceit.

Still, centering the action on the charismatic host works well to generate sympathy and fascination. Jack and Leo put together a show designed to generate high ratings (there’s even a Nielsen box reference), eager to capitalize on the wave of occult fascination sweeping the nation during the ’70s. The guests include Christou (a letter-perfect portrayal by Fayssal Bazzi), a famous psychic who communes with the recently departed, and Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss), a very successful stage magician and opinionated skeptic of all things paranormal (clearly based on Canadian magician and author James Randi). Haig continually interrupts Christou to explain why the latter’s revelations about the dead loved ones of people in the studio audience are nothing but a manipulative charade. Their sparring generates barely concealed excitement about ratings gold, which translates, of course, into money for many of the people involved.

It’s the kind of antagonistic tactic that first became popular on ’80s talk shows. In the ’90s, episodes that sensationalized the Satanic Panic catapulted talk show hosts Gerald Rivera and Oprah Winfrey to fame. Despite its fictional nature, Late Night with the Devil is a savvy chronicle of popular culture’s obsession with all things occult. When a third and fourth guest are introduced on Halloween night, we are given more cheeky homages to the era’s occult revival: psychologist June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) specializes in paranormal phenomena. She accompanies Lilly (an excellent Ingrid Torelli), her teenage “patient,” who is possessed by a lesser demon. Lilly is attractive, neatly-dressed and polite. But her smile is cold — there’s something decidedly off-kilter with her.

Though it isn’t alluded to, Lilly’s story is a clear nod to the 1973 blockbuster film The Exorcist. Lilly even has a “special friend,” named “Mr. Wiggles” that she chats with, like Regan MacNeil’s “Captain Howdy” who speaks from her Ouija Board. Though the pair’s presence is meant to generate understanding and sympathy for Lilly’s condition, the producers were hoping for some devilish shenanigans, and so are we. Hell does, indeed, break loose. But just when the on- and offstage mayhem seems to be reaching its natural end point, the film continues down a disjointed and bizarre trajectory that left me feeling somewhat lost. Perhaps that was the point?

From its very beginning, Late Night with the Devil pays expert attention to period detail, not only in the live action scenes but in the technological arrangement of the footage. Its special effects are impressive, combining both ’70s-style analog techniques and the seamlessness contemporary audiences demand. There’s been some controversy surrounding the directors’ use of AI-generated art to create the ’70s-style intermission title cards. I do find this choice to be offensive and stupid — especially in the wake of the recent, prolonged strikes by writers and artists. But I’m stopping short of joining those calling for a boycott of an otherwise admirable indie production because of an objection to “art” used for a few seconds. Let’s learn from this and move on, folks. The excellent cast deserves to be enjoyed, especially David Daltmachian, who knocks this performance out of the stratosphere and into a brilliant space melding reality and illusion.

I’ve no doubt this film will inspire filmmakers to create similar projects, just as the definitive “previously unseen footage” juggernaut The Blair Witch Project (1999) did. “Found footage” is now a genre referred to as confidently and blithely as “slasher” or “zombie apocalypse” and the Blair Witch upstarts changed everything with just an idea and a minuscule budget. Indeed, that team perfected the “fake occult TV documentary” format with the adjacent short video Exploration of the Blair Witch Legend (1999), which includes ’70s era “archival footage” that looks convincingly genuine. But, unlike the Blair Witch team, the Cairnes brothers aren’t interested in promulgating fakery while (perhaps inadvertently) creating a wholly new cinematic genre. They layer this film with a subtle satirical smugness, which works well with their brand of arch horror comedy — they assume audiences are sophisticated enough to parse all the references. But beyond that, the pair supply a razor-sharp commentary on digital culture. Late Night with the Devil considers how the analog media trickery of a bygone era may illuminate our current obsessions with what is real, how art is created, who should be believed, and what, ultimately, should be feared.

Peg Aloi is a former film critic for the Boston Phoenix and member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Critics Choice Awards, and the Alliance for Women Film Journalists. She taught film studies in Boston for over a decade. She writes on film, TV, and culture for web publications like Time, Vice, Polygon, Bustle, Mic, Orlando Weekly, and Bloody Disgusting. Her blog “The Witching Hour” can be found on substack.