At a live taping of The Late Show with David Letterman, producers with headsets implored site author and the hundreds of fellow attendees to give the host maximal energy, so that Dave could reciprocate and put on a good show. Mics with the ability to pick up any crowd noise were conspicuously present in every row as we were urged to clap like cultists.
But the fact that there was some artifice and showbiz trickery behind the scenes is nothing compared with the goings-on in Late Night with the Devil, a period horror set against the backdrop of what some might call the Golden Era of the TV talk show, when Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, Merv Griffin and company ruled the airwaves.
It was a time when crooners, comedians, mentalists and magicians competed for the public’s attention, and wide lapels looked like they could at any moment, swoop the wearer into mid-air.
Night Owls with Jack Delroy is the fictional competitor to Carson here, complete with Johnny mannerisms like tugging at the caller when a joke lands like an IED.
He’s got a sidekick and band too, but is a late night also-ran in the ratings department.
When a mentalist meets with an untimely end, and a parapsychologist extracts some weirdness from the lone survivor of a Branch Davidian-like compound, live on air…it’s soon revealed that the dapper Delroy has an unseemly backstory.
Late Night with the Devil somehow manages to effortlessly combine period, supernatural and body horror – with some dynamite practical effects to boot. But your connection to the proceedings could in part be contingent on your affinity for the medium of television.
Either way, we horror folks have been blessed with some stellar period horrors, whether it’s the kinetic Last Night in Soho or on-point X.
**** (out of 5)
Check out the Really Awful Movies Podcast discussion of Late Night with the Devil.
Really Awful Movies 