The “hollywood dream” subgenre has some amazing movies that are legendary. Except they’re all almost entirely sad. Mulholland Drive, Sunset Boulevard, Sullivan’s Travels, Birdman, Boogie Nights, A Star is Born, Babylon, MaXXXine, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, etc. Even the ones that have some lightness about them, like La La Land, ultimately end up this place where you have to sacrifice something meaningful to achieve the dream.
Late Night with the Devil is a pretty unique twist on the “hollywood dream” film. Where other movies keep the “deal with the devil” aspect as metaphorical, Late Night turns it into a literal event, which allows it to lean into the horror genre tropes in a pretty big way.
Late Night with the Devil ending explained
(What’s) The deal with Abraxas
Plot wise, there are two layers at the end of Late Night. The most obvious is the exposition that tells us that Jack, as part of his membership in “The Grove”, made a deal with Abraxas for success. Part of that deal was, it’s revealed, the death of his wife as a sacrifice. This seems to explain why Abraxas had, earlier in the film, said “Good to see you again, Jack” and “We go way back.”
Except there’s something else going on. The heartbreaking scene with Jack’s wife culminates with her begging him to put her out of her misery (from the pain of the cancer). So he picks up a knife from a table and stabs her. Then we quickly cut back to the studio. Jack screams in horror as he realizes it’s not his wife in front of him but Lilly. And everyone around him is dead. He repeats, “Dreamer, here. Awake” as sirens sound around him. Then the transmission ends.
The reveal that Jack had actually stabbed Lilly is a payoff to the earlier scene where Carmichael had hypnotized Gus and the audience into thinking Gus had worms coming out of his body. So the whole exposition dump has a deeper purpose of disorienting Jack so that he’d use the blade to free Lilly and maybe even Abraxas.
It’s not the most shocking or cunning twist but that second layer to the exposition was something I appreciated.
Tell me how you really feel about the entertainment industry
You may have picked up on the fact that Late Night with the Devil is critical of the entertainment industry. And by that I mean the movie beats you over the head with its criticisms of the entertainment industry and the pursuit of fame.
The opening sequence initially positions Jack as this good man who is working hard in the entertainment space and just can’t quite achieve what he hopes to achieve. The whole deal with the devil serves as a metaphor for the more realistic sacrifices people make on the path for success. In real life, someone doesn’t offer their significant other to a demon. But they do become so career-focused that it can be the “death” of a relationship. Jack exchanges his “girl next door” wife for the parapsychologist and author who is also willing to play the entertainment game to achieve success.
It’s June’s choice to transform Lilly from a patient into a spectacle that causes everything to go wrong. The film critiques many aspects of show business but the commentary on the exploitation of children seems to be the most emphatic. I see Lilly’s death having two implications. First, it was her choice, so I take that as pointing to child actors who would rather do something else but their parents force them to act. Many child actors retire once they reach adulthood. Second, it seems like a more general commentary on how predatory the industry is when it comes to children. June asked Jack to not push demonstrating Abraxas, but Jack could only think of his ratings gain, his success, and not the human cost. Likewise, even though June knows better, she lets herself be talked into it.
And then you have Carmichael who had positioned himself as a knight of truth, trying to expose the frauds, but it was just another gimmick, another kind of performance.
Is TV bad for society?
As much as Late Night with the Devil critiques the entertainment industry, the opening montage contextualizes what happens on Jack’s show as a byproduct of the times. Riots, war, racism, satanism. The first thing the narrator says is, “America, the 1970s. A time of unrest and mistrust. A time of fear and violence. Television documents the chaos, beams the horror into our living rooms.”
This sets up a relationship between what happens in the world and what we watch on TV. At first, we’re told television documents the chaos. But, by the end of the movie, we realize that television is actually part of the chaos. The initial montage of Jack’s show is light and heartful. Part of the idea that tv can provide comfort. But, at the end, after Abraxas has taken over the stage, the movie “restarts”.
We see a static screen. Then Jack steps on stage and it’s as if nothing has happened. That confuses him. But the audience applauds and Gus implores. Then we flash to the cave person segment from that opening montage, except this time it’s not innocent fun. It’s ugly. Same with Jack meeting with the animal trainer. And the special show with Madeleine before her death, also turned sour. We then see this older woman who spins a hypnosis wheel. Jack turns to the camera and says “Switch off your televisions. Turn off your TV sets. Stop watching this. Turn it off! Turn it off! Stop! Please.”
The Narrator had offered Jack’s show as the counter to the “horror” TV beams into our living rooms. An escape from the bad things happening in the world. But, at the end, we’re supposed to realize that bad things had been happening on Jack’s show the entire time. We were just “hypnotized” into thinking otherwise. The best thing we could do for ourselves, according to Jack, is stop watching.
The question is: stop watching what? All television? Just the news? Or late-night shows like Night Owls (looking at you Jimmy Fallon)? Or is scripted TV bad too? Is Seinfeld bad but The Wire okay? What about movies? Are they also bad? There’s definitely room for conversation here, as I don’t think Late Night is all that clear about the extent of its criticism. If it’s a specific thing, some things, or all things. But, the broader takeaway is that it does make this connection between the world and the television and how they influence one another. Does TV merely show us the bad things happening? Or does it set the tone for the world and inspire some of these bad things to happen?
Late Night with the Devil questions and analysis
Is Late Night with the Devil a found-footage movie?
Yeah. Not the normal kind of found-footage movie. But they do quite literally find the footage from the show. And there is a documentary aspect, as a crew was filming this special show. So you have both the production footage as well as the behind the scenes recordings from the doc.
Is Late Night with the Devil based on a true story?
I mean…No. But yes? It’s based on the idea that the entertainment industry asks people to sacrifice. And the ones who succeed can be the ones who make deals and have connections with powerful people. Hollywood has never been a true meritocracy, which is part of the movie’s criticism.
But there was never a late night host who had a big Halloween show that turned violent due to demonic possession.
Was Christou legit or not?
Yes and no. By the end of the movie, we know that there are real, occult things happening. It’s not all performance and hallucination. Christou did seem aware of something in the studio. So his psychic ability seemed at least somewhat legitimate. But the scene where he “speaks” to the son/brother of the two women and knows information that he couldn’t possibly have known…that one was proven to be fake. Carmichael puts this together when the women explain that they had answered some survey questions ahead of the show, questions asked by Christou’s manager.
What was the AI controversy?
So somewhere between the film’s premiere at SXSW in March of 2023 and its official release in theaters in March of 2024, the Carines brothers decided to add some AI art. People quickly noticed it and the backlash grew pretty quickly.
The brothers released a statement: “In conjunction with our amazing graphics and production design team, all of whom worked tirelessly to give this film the 70s aesthetic we had always imagined, we experimented with AI for three still images which we edited further and ultimately appear as very brief interstitials in the film.”
Honestly, by the time I watched the movie to write this (October 2024), I had forgotten about the controversy, didn’t notice the use of AI, then only remembered when I got to this “questions” section of the write up. I do understand why people were upset and want to police any use of AI in a professional film production. Give the entertainment industry an inch on AI and they will take a mile. Which makes the use of it in a movie about the entertainment industry dehumanizing people…kind of ironic (and not in the good way).
Did Jack really make a deal?
I don’t see any reason not to accept the in-story explanation of what happened. It’s treated as a reveal. Jack doesn’t deny it. And we’re watching “video evidence” of the events from that night. If there was some twist that Jack was the one who went crazy and Abraxas never existed…I’m pretty sure we would see more evidence for that.
Is Abraxas real?
I mean, probably not in the sense that demons exist (I hope). But, yeah, Abraxas as a concept predates Late Night. Here’s the whole entry from the wikipedia of demons, Demopedia (a real thing that exists).
Cast
- Jack Delroy – David Dastmalchian
- June Rose-Mitchell – Laura Gordon
- Lilly D’Abo – Ingrid Torelli
- Gus – Rhys Auteri
- Carmichael – Ian Bliss
- Christou – Fayssal Bazzi
- Narrator – Michael Ironside
- Written by – Colin Cairnes | Cameron Cairnes
- Directed by – Colin Cainres | Cameron Cairnes
