Directed by Glenn and Ryan Cairnes, “Late Night with the Devil” is a chilling mockumentary/found-footage horror film. It premiered in 2023 at various festivals before being made available for streaming on Amazon Prime. Set in the 1970s, the once popular “Night Owls with Jack Delroy” (David Dastmalchia) is suffering from low viewership ratings. To remedy his situation, he accepts making a dangerous Halloween special: he features Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), a 13-year-old rescued girl from a demonic cult who claims to receive messages from the demonic world.
Plot Summary
Michael Ironside’s voice sets a spooky tone as he talks about Jack Delroy, also known as “Mr. Midnight,” and his late-night show, Night Owls. It came on air in 1971 as a competitor to Johnny Carson’s show. In the beginning, it went well, even getting Jack an Emmy nomination and a new contract. However, by 1977, it was not looking good at all. The rating remained at one level for too long, until Delroy’s wife passed away. There were also talks that he might have been involved in some strange cult activities.
Then came Sweeps Week, a crucial time for TV ratings. The pivotal Night Owls broadcast happened during this week in 1977. The gimmick is that we’re about to watch the lost tape of the show, which is unedited and shocking to watch. Delroy starts with his usual jokes and introduces some eccentric guests: a psychic, a skeptic magician, and a parapsychologist. Things go awry when the psychic dies and the third guest, a little girl, is possessed by a demon!
What happens next is a proper horror show that’ll have the audience look away in fear!
Let’s get into the plot and ending of this spine-chilling horror in detail!
Who is Jack Delroy?
The movie starts with a throwback to the 1970s, an era characterized by political instability and a cultural obsession with mysterious things. This was the time when late-night television gained more popularity, as it provided viewers with a source of joy and euphoria during difficult times.
Jack Delroy, our leading character, is a host who leads his show in “Night Owls,” which within no time became one of the most followed comedy, satire, and philosophical shows ever. It was very successful on the airwaves, hence earning Jack an Emmy nomination and a big contract deal from the UBC network.
However, Jack had a hard personal life. He belonged to an underground men’s club known as The Grove that added some element of controversial secrecy about him. Despite this, there were never any secrets between Jack and his wife, Madeleine, as she always stayed beside him. Unfortunately, she died suddenly due to lung cancer, which hit both Jack and his fans really hard. An emotional episode where Jack invited a sick Madeleine onto the show became one of its highest-rated events ever.
After Madeleine’s death, Jack went out of the public eye so that he could grieve. Right after a month, he returned to “Night Owls” for the sixth season, and anxiety was high over whether or not it would continue to be successful. Sweeps Week was approaching, and Jack needed something new to grab TRP and audiences.
To improve their ratings during Halloween and their ever-growing fascination with the supernatural, Jack came up with an episode based on paranormal topics. He invited guests connected to supernatural and paranormal phenomena for a Halloween special, which promised a night of scary entertainment.
What happens to the first guest on the show?
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The premiere of this much-awaited episode of Jack Delroy’s show about the occult starts with an introduction of a medium named Christou (Fayssal Bazzi). Like any other soothsayer, Christou strives to stun viewers by recounting things about them that he has no way of knowing. He began by pronouncing a name that he said was given to him from the world beyond, but when a doubter in the crowd ridicules him, Jack barely pays heed, and for him, this is just part of the show.
However, it gets serious when Christou approaches two women in the audience who turn out to be mother and daughter and mentions a name that makes them break down. It eventually comes out that it was their deceased son and brother who tragically died by taking his life at an early age. Christou claims he is transmitting a message from this dead person, leaving his audience gasping for breath in what seems like supernatural powers on display here.
Even though he should have stopped there, Christou suddenly goes on with his act, calling another name “Minnie” without getting any response from the people present. He seemed to be in a lot of pain, yet no one in the room responded. Yet Jack can’t hide his uneasiness with this word.
As the episode progresses, Carmichael, a magician and renowned skeptic, takes the stage to investigate Christou’s claims. Invariably, he discovers that some of Christou’s activities were planned.
However, something truly creepy is associated with “Minnie.” It is disclosed as Jack’s private pet name for his deceased wife, Madeleine. Such a revelation really disturbs Jack. However, his producer Leo forces him to be cool about it as the show must go on.
Then suddenly, we see Christou fall seriously ill and act weirdly by showing strange behavior and spurting out a dark black liquid all over the set. Eventually, it was deduced that the demonic presence that had already been present in the studio seized him. He is immediately rushed to the hospital; however, on his way there, he dies tragically as the blood wouldn’t stop coming out.
The producer doesn’t let anyone know that Christou has died, apart from the members of the audience and other guests, but Jack cannot hide his shaken state caused by this unexplainable incident. This leaves everyone questioning where fact ends and fiction begins, especially when Jack himself has no explanation for what took place during the event, again leading to an attack of inexplicable emotions in him.
Who was the third guest at Late Night with the Devil?
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Things get serious when the third guest arrives. Lilly, a 13-year-old teenager who at one point belonged to a cult called The First Church of Abraxis led by someone called Szandor D’Abo, carried out strange rituals and even went as far as performing illegal acts such as human sacrifices.
The group was eventually caught by the police, but many people committed suicide by burning down their den. The sole survivor, Lilly, was saved when she was 10 years old. This revelation makes “Late Night with the Devil” a horror movie that proves the existence of ghosts and demons. When Lily was found after being saved, June Ross Mitchell, a parapsychologist, took care of her since she studies the paranormal. She loved Lily very much, just like her biological child. She brought her to Jack’s show in order to sell her book, ‘Conversations with the Devil’ depicting what happened during those times.
Lilly has a demonic presence named Mr.Wiggles haunting her persistently all the time. This is why sometimes Lily seems different or can float up into space thanks to this demon who does crazy stuff in relation to her life.
Who is Carmichael Haig?
Carmichael the Conjurer, the second guest on Jack’s episode, is at the opposite pole since he is an adamant supporter of science and creativity without considering supernatural powers. He even has a team that moves around debunking cases of paranormal activities, and meanwhile, he became too proud of his ability to expose these deceptions. He is so certain in what he believes and even goes further to offer any person who successfully proves him wrong concerning supernatural subjects, a $500,000 check. However, we have to note that he is also quite greedy for fame as he asks Jack to take him to be a part of The Grove.
What happens when Jack pressures June to conjure Mr. Wiggles?
Unfortunately, June tries to persuade Jack to summon a demon inside Lilly, but Jack is adamant. He has been planning it for some time, with the hope that his show will be more popular than those of his competitors. A clue even suggests that Jack and June may be having an affair. Eventually, June ties Lilly to a chair and summons Mr. Wriggles, the demon. At this point, the demon begins pestering Jack, causing Lilly’s body to twist, her eyes to change color, and her voice to turn spooky at the same time. At first, he thinks it’s just playing around, only for things to take a scary turn as the chair starts flying up.
The lights then flicker like they do in other horror movies about demons. Having calmed down after controlling Mr. Wriggles, Carmichael, who is skeptical, continues to ridicule her. They look at the footage so as to find out what is really going on and see Madeleine’s ghost beside him, as if she were standing next to him all along.
How does Carmichael hypnotize the audience?
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The story gets even more interesting after Lilly’s possession when Carmichael is put under pressure to authenticate his revelations. He demonstrates his hypnosis prowess by hypnotizing Gus, Jack’s PA, as well as other people on the stage and in the audience. He managed to make Gus believe that worms were crawling out of his flesh, making him go berserk. Moreover, he made all the other people believe they could see this disgusting spectacle happening on stage. It is worth noting that we viewers are also spellbound by the movie because it makes us feel like we are hypnotized and can see through it. However, it all happens in our thoughts, and they learn this after Gus comes to his senses and they review the tape.
“Late Night with the Devil” Ending Explained: What Was the Plot Twist?
In the end of the movie, things get chaotic as Mr. Wiggles, the demon, shows up as a really powerful being through Lilly. Lilly’s face changes to look like the Devil, showing that the demon has a lot of power. It kills everyone on the stage except for Jack.
He has a dream, which explains everything he needs to know about our main character, Jack. It turns out that he was a member of a secretive cult called, The Grove, consisting of powerful personalities such as politicians and businessmen. This group also had hidden activities that included being Satanists and linked to D’Abo’s cult.
When Jack started becoming successful as a TV presenter, he wanted to be the best like Johnny Carson, who was another famous TV host during that period. The problem was that nothing Jack did could ever beat Carson’s ratings. So Jack did something crazy: he joined in a Satanic sacrifice done by the Grove.
During this ceremony, ”Jack entered into some kind of contract with Mr. Wiggles,” who is actually one of those demons from the Grove. Hence, it tells him later on, through Lilly’s mouth, where they met in the woods for a meeting of the Grove. As per their agreement, Madeleine would be killed by her husband as part of the bargain. That was why she contracted lung cancer and died so quickly! In order to get his wife back onto his show, the first thing he tried was bringing Madeleine there, but it didn’t work out well.
Madeleine’s ghost keeps appearing to Jack, and it haunts him. It dawns on Jack that he has been deceived by the demon in his mind; during hallucinations, he goes through a murder scene where he killed Madeleine to free her from agony. In reality, he is tricked into stabbing Lilly dead while on stage. The question is whether or not it is the evil spirits from the Grove that are pushing him or if it is the devil itself.
