Khoi Vinh’s review published on Letterboxd:
If you go into a movie called “Late Night with the Devil” and it stars David Dastmalchian, you kind of expect Dastmalchian to play the devil, don’t you? This movie instead puts him in the role of genial, family friendly talk show host, the kind of television personality ostensibly loaded with enough broad appeal to go toe-to-toe with Johnny Carson in the ratings. It’s an unexpected gambit as it does throw you off kilter quite effectively while you try to guess where the devil is going to show up and in what form. Dastmalchian makes a meal of the opportunity, having tremendous fun playing against type as a non-weirdo, or perhaps better to describe his character as not quite not weird. He’s unexpectedly charming and engaging, but you can’t fully ignore the sadness in the actor’s eyes. That slightly unsettling undercurrent of a troubled spirit adds remarkable depth to his performance, which is a joy to behold. It’s a good thing too as, aside from its fixation on recreating the full aesthetic of mid-70s television and broadcasting technology, this movie is mostly about this performance, and not so much the horror. The scares are not particularly scary and the tremendous build up doesn’t actually yield any major resolutions before the credits roll. Nevertheless what is here is really, really fun. It may never rise to the level of a masterpiece, but it’s the platonic ideal of a B-movie: with all of its imperfections it’s still just smart enough and just crazy enough to make its runtime a blast.
Saw it at Regal Union Square on a bargain Tuesday.
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