Late Night With the Devil

The Aussie brothers behind 100 Bloody Acres (MIFF Premiere Fund 2012) mix frights and frivolity in recreating a 1970s talk show that goes straight to hell.

Jack Delroy is a syndicated late-night talk show host craving to be the next Johnny Carson. On the one-year anniversary of his wife’s death (on Halloween night, of course), he returns to the airwaves with guests including a clairvoyant, a parapsychologist and the lone survivor of a satanic cult. Unbeknown to Jack, the trio is joined by a supernatural force seeking to haunt him until a climax so diabolical it would no doubt top the primetime charts.

Colin and Cameron Cairnes dove into footage of veterans like Carson, David Letterman, Don Lane and Dick Cavett to ensure Late Night With the Devil captures the flavour of the era’s iconic late-night broadcasts. Presented as a lost recording of a fateful episode, this deviously fun twist on the genre features a standout leading turn from David Dastmalchian (The Dark Knight; Dune) and a cast that includes Fayssal Bazzi (Measure for Measure, MIFF Premiere Fund 2019) and Laura Gordon (Undertow, MIFF Premiere Fund 2019). The King of Horror himself, Stephen King, applauded the film following its SXSW premiere: “It’s absolutely brilliant,” he tweeted to his 7.1 million followers. “I couldn’t take my eyes off it.”