Late Night with the Devil (2024)

The "documentary" intro to the film does a lot of the heavy lifting, briefing us on talk show host Jack Delroy who, though popular, has never managed to land the top spot. He lost his beloved wife to lung cancer (though she'd never smoked) and, about a year later, his ratings have gotten extremely low. There's also some info about a secret society that breeds children to sacrifice. For Halloween 1977 -- during sweeps week -- Delroy's show "Night Owls" decided to embrace the season by booking a medium, a skeptic, and a girl rescued from the secret society who claims to be possessed by a demon. What follows is the tape of that episode, not shown since 1977.

This is an absorbing and effective low-budget horror film with David Dastmalchian (Delroy) and Ingrid Torelli (as the possessed Lilly) turning in particularly good performances. Though it can't help but kind of peter out at the end, I was pretty impressed.

B-