Cameron & Colin Cairnes' Late Night with the Devil

Each week, Drew creates a watchlist with film recommendations provided by you, the tnmn community.

Last week’s category: escapist movies. The results are posted to our website and Letterboxd account every week.

This week’s category: Samuel L. Jackson movies. He’s one of the most prolific actors of all time. Reply to this email with your submission and why we should watch it. We’ll feature it in next week’s newsletter.¹

¹ If your submission doesn't comply with the category, I will bring back the Magic Eye trend. You know — autostereograms? The 2D patterns that, if you stare at them long enough, reveal a 3D image. They are so neat. But everyone reading this knows that YOU could never actually see the 3D image. You looked hard but you could never fully relax your eyes and experience the bliss of the 3D image emerging. Perhaps the fact that you’ve never been able to do it is a symptom of a larger problem. Have you ever been able to truly relax? Unplug? Let go? You aren’t so sure. You start reflecting. Maybe you need to do a little work on yourself. You decide to skip town with nothing but a small blue Gatorade and a Magic Eye book. You pick a direction and drive until you reach the coast. You get out of the car, breathe in the salty ocean air and fall to your knees and let out a howl. You wonder why you brought a blue Gatorade with you. You don’t even like the taste of it. Typical you. Perpetually impulsive, never able to make the right decision at the right time. A neighboring stranger overhears your cries and checks to see if you’re okay. And you figure, fuck it: you tell them everything, starting with the resurfacing of the Magic Eye craze. The stranger takes the book from your hand and says they can’t see the 3D images either. This becomes the foundation of a strong, lifelong connection and you become life partners. It isn’t a romantic arrangement — but you move in and agree to live the remainder of your days together. If you lean on each other, perhaps you two can make the best of a flawed existence. Eventually, you take in more strangers who feel stuck or unsettled in their lives. You build a community around this shared failure of the senses — none of you can see the 3D images behind autostereograms. One day, a mysterious new member joins. They infiltrate the community, manipulating and earning the trust of the masses, before introducing some dangerous, cult-like ideas. It all culminates in a standoff between you and the new member — and eventually they overthrow you and your partners’ longstanding status as leaders of the community. It’s not long before your community resembles something of a cult, worshiping the original Magic Eye book. You are kicked out of the group, and your partner is given the choice between you and the community. They pick the community, and hand you the original Magic Eye book that sent you in a tailspin. The one I created to engineer the resurgence of this trend. You look at the back cover of the book, and in fine print, you read: THESE IMAGES ARE NOT AUTOSTEREOGRAMS, AND THEREFORE DO NOT FUNCTION AS SUCH. THEY ARE COMMEMORATIVE, INTENDED TO REMIND READERS OF THE MAGIC EYE SERIES. NO 3D IMAGES WILL REVEAL THEMSELVES WHILST VIEWING THESE WORKS. I got you so good. So, ya know. Follow the category.

A spoiler-free description of the movie.

In 1977, the host of a failing late-night show decides to film a Halloween special.

If you like these things, then you’ll like the film.

→ Double takes. When horror movies do image work and make you think you saw something.

→ Unsettling imagery. I don’t think there’s a better way to describe this movie. It’s, most simply, unsettling.

→ People playing it cool on live tv.² David Dastmalchian, otherwise known as “that guy from that movie…what was it?”, and his cast-mates try to play it cool while the devil takes over their live TV broadcast.

² I took some time to reflect on this by Googling “people playing it cool on live tv” – the results of which I under-examined to a criminal extent. This is the second week in a row where the first result was effectively the opposite of what you might expect from my query — a 15 minute YouTube video entitled “When Celebrities Completely Lose it on Live TV”. That is decidedly not a good answer for “people playing it cool on live tv”.

I watched the first few minutes of the video, which appeared to be a collection of various moments in which celebrities lose their cool on television. The first is a clip of Patrick Stewart and James Corden getting into a verbal argument at an awards ceremony because the latter appeared bored during Stewart’s acceptance speech. The second is Burt Reynolds pouring water on the lap of a guy who makes fun of him for getting a divorce. The concept of celebrities being unkind to each other on television is less entertaining than you might think, so this is as far as I made it.

Prior to the video running, YouTube served me an ad about weight loss. The ad immediately felt like a con, so I clicked the ad to save it for later. The ad took me to a strange website called sparkslimeenergy.online. The headline in large, bold lettering at the top of the site: “DO THIS AT HOME: Natural trick to lose weight and improve well-being.” In small font at the foot of the website: “Disclaimer: These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This information is not a substitute for or alternative to any medical treatment. Please seek guidance from a healthcare professional for your specific health concerns. Results may vary from person to person.”

I searched far and wide, and to my own absolute surprise — I couldn’t find anything on the website to buy. Who runs an ad to a webpage that isn’t selling anything? The webpage only featured a link to a video where Oprah endorses something called “The Pink Salt Trick”.

Note: The contents of this website were taken down at some point after I visited it and before I published this edition of tnmn.

The pink salt trick is a health trend popularized on TikTok and other social media that advises people to drink warm water, lemon, and Himalayan pink salt to promote weight loss and decrease cravings. Missouri State released an article that refutes these claims — featuring an expert dietitian explaining that “Pink salt doesn’t speed up metabolism, detox the body or cause weight loss.” She does, however, explain that “the real benefit comes from hydration and replacing sugary drinks, not from the pink salt itself.” Neat.

But something kept nagging at me. Who was behind this advertisement? Why spend to promote a video of Oprah touting a TikTok trend? Was it Big Salt, trying to fill my shaker with pink Himalayan again? I conducted an exhaustive search for like, a few seconds, to try to find the owner of the domain behind the advertisement — but the owner appears to have paid to keep their information private through a service called Domains by Proxy, LLC. What are they hiding? And why?

I think I’m done here.

What I liked about it.

In 2023, if you had told me that found footage horror would have a brief moment again — I’d have looked you dead in the eyes and damned you straight to hell.

The Paranormal Activity series did it seven (7) times. Yes, there were seven feature-length entries in that series, which ran from 2009 to 2021.

After damning you straight to hell, I would have very calmly told you that it seemed like the found footage concept had worn out its welcome, and it would likely be a little while before the format found a mainstream audience again.

Later that year, I’d be forced to have my foot surgically removed from my mouth, because 2023 was the year that Cameron & Colin Cairnes' Late Night with the Devil was released. Insult to injury — the film was also produced by the company behind Paranormal Activity.

The film ingeniously drops a slew of demonic possession tropes on the set of 1970s America’s safest, famously inoffensive medium: late night television. It’s not entirely unlike how Ari Aster subverted expectations by shooting the majority of his horror film, Midsommar, in broad daylight.

Though it’s technically a found footage film, you aren’t forced to sit through amateurish camera work or obligatory explanations for why the camera is on — it all unfolds, as mentioned, on a professionally-operated, live television set.

Most impressively, the writer-director sibling duo behind Late Night with the Devil avoid making this film nothing more than a set gimmick, perhaps because of their deft choice to use the set as more than a vintage, 70s-style coat of paint on the oft-told demonic possession story.

The live TV set, in fact, is a compelling narrative device that effectively creates a distortion field for the motives of every character in the film — giving you a reason to second guess much of what you see.

Many of the characters have incentive to act differently when the cameras are rolling, as compared to who they are next to the craft services table.

David Dastmalchian turns in a textured, grief-stricken performance as Jack Delroy, the late night show host at the center of the film.

When the cameras are rolling, he’s the witty host with all the answers. And when they’re not — he’s a fearful, desperate man willing to do anything for a ratings boost.

Watching those two sides of the character collide as things go off the rails is quite the journey.

Ingrid Torelli puts forth a genuinely haunting performance as Lilly, and the directors wring every ounce of torment from the concept through a relatively unconventional audio and video edit.

The Cairnes’ brothers competently plant seeds, build tension, and make use of recurring elements to subvert expectations — all useful ingredients for successful horror film.

There are a few really iconic set pieces that play heavily with early satanic panic imagery and well-crafted, 70s era horror practical effects à la Cronenberg or Carpenter.

Most of all, Late Night with the Devil is horror reliably and handily executed with the same steady-handed craftsmanship you might expect from the set of a daily late night television show.

Enjoy the film.

A fact or two about the production that makes you say “oh, neat.”

→ Star David Dastmalchian was cast because of an article he wrote about TV horror hosts. The film's directors offered Dastmalchian the lead role after reading an article he had written for Fangoria magazine about the regional TV horror hosts he grew up watching.

→ The film used AI for the “be right back” cards in Jack Delroy’s fictional talk show. This led to online backlash and calls for a boycott from critics of the technology. I don’t love the use of AI in creative work. Though — this was an independent film that likely struggled with its budget — evidenced by the amount of production companies and distributors that they needed to sign onto the project to get it made.

One great line of dialogue from the film.

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