Late Night With The Devil (2024)

The written companion

Draft companion · Awaiting editorial review

Late Night with the Devil: A Broadcast Neither of Them Could Look Away From

Matt's enthusiasm is immediate: he watched Late Night with the Devil, then watched it again that night. Dan is drawn in from another direction. David Dastmalchian is an actor he has enjoyed in supporting roles, and he wants to see what happens when that distinctive presence becomes the center of a film.

That difference gives their conversation a useful shape. Matt responds to the experience of being caught in the broadcast; Dan starts pulling at the threads of its television setting and occult imagery. The talk-show format gives them both something to discuss beyond whether an individual scare lands. Personalities clash, a host tries to control his program, and the pressure to keep an audience watching becomes part of the horror.

They pay attention to the young guest's unnerving composure, too. A casual expression or an apparently playful reaction can become more disturbing than another burst of gore. Dan appreciates the film's ability to make relatively limited physical violence effective, especially in contrast with the more extravagant Abigail they recently discussed.

Matt does have a reservation. The final, disorienting stretch loses some of the control that made the rest of the movie so gripping for him. He understands more on a second viewing, but still thinks its presentation could have worked differently. That keeps his score at nine and a half out of ten; Dan gives it nine on the same original scale.

The strength of their exchange is that the qualification does not flatten the excitement. They can love the movie and still ask whether its last movement delivers on the particular spell its format has cast.

Did the ending deepen the nightmare for you, or interrupt the broadcast's hold? And how much of the film's power comes from believing in Jack as a television host?

Watch their Late Night with the Devil discussion ↗

Based on auto-generated captions. The episode contains major spoilers; this companion discusses the ending's effect without revealing its events.