Late Night With The Devil is a 2023 film made in the lineage of campy b-horror movies, found footage, and 1980s Satanic Panic era talk shows such as Geraldo or Oprah; who at the time made hundreds of hours of specials on stories of supposed Satanic cults in a loose but interconnected network roaming about the United States committing horrific crimes against children, creating Manchurian candidates, and many other dastardly deeds; such never really existed however. As portrayed in this flick, Jack Delroy, a man with a vaguely suspicious past, is the host of a lower rated syndicated talk show in 1977 on Halloween, trying to get a boost in viewership with the special holiday set planned. With this setup the groundwork for the rest of the show is laid down for what is essentially, a perfect theme which, by being pre-1980 would be a proto-Satanic Panic piece.
The guest list for the night consists of a psychically inclined man who has the purported ability to communicate with spirits, in a way he likens to a ham radio, and gives the audience a due display, much to the dismay and dismissal of the featured skeptic sitting on the stage. This skeptic serves as a counterbalance to Jack and the rest of the evening's stars, to the point of having an actual financially compensating prize for anyone who could prove the supernatural real, similar to the real life One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge from the James Randi Educational Foundation that was in place from 1964 up until 2015; and was denying the paranormal activity going on around them, even after learning the psychic who had been taken off stage after having a seeming migraine from a malicious presence and vomiting up black blood had died. Quickly then going to a commercial intermission and moving the psychic out of the way, recuperating themselves running the show and reinvigorate live audience who had bore witness so as to be able to proceed with the main part of the show that night.
Coming to the climactic segment with the prior scare serving as a warning, or catalyst, for the horror about to occur. Here we see a variation of the classic Satanic Panic tale: a parapsychologist with (and whom she also serves as legal guardian of) her young patient Lilly, the sole survivor of a diabolical cult who worshipped the demon Abraxas (in reality the Gnostic 'god above gods') and died in a Waco-imitation shootout with federal agents and burned themselves alive inside their suburban abbey, which was all detailed in a book by the mental health professional. This leads to the conjuration of a spirit who can possess Lilly's body, and done so in a manner which to the skeptic seems akin to ideas of hypnotism to which he then gives his own performance of for the room; all subtly touching upon the matter of what was at the time known as Multiple Personality Disorder (now rebranded as Dissociative Identity Disorder for posterity purposes after the moral hysteria subsided) and repressed memory syndrome.
Nonetheless, in spite of the skeptic's denial and to the growing unease of the room and Jack after the death of the psychic and witnessed summoning; no amount of pedantic dismissal would save the night when the demonic entity came back to raise Hell in the studio.
Select Bibliography:
Mulhern, S. (1994). Satanism, ritual abuse, and multiple personality disorder: A sociohistorical perspective. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 42(4), 265–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207149408409359
Waterhouse, R. T. “Satanic Abuse, False Memories, Weird Beliefs and Moral Panics.” Doctoral, City University London, 2015. https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/11871/.
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