On October 31, 1977, Jack Delroy—the famous host of Night Owls—decided to go big by organizing interviews with several individuals involved in the spiritual field. Among them were psychic Christou, former magician Carmichael Haig—currently working at the Federation for Paranormal Science Investigations—and Dr. June Ross-Mitchell, a specialist in demonology, along with Lily, a girl believed to be possessed by an evil spirit. Labeled as a fun variety show for many families late at night, it seems that the show's producers and Jack Delroy did not fully understand the consequences of playing with the spiritual world when they aired a live interview with the Devil on national television.
Today, let's sit back in a comfortable chair and allow this special episode of the late-night show, titled Late Night with the Devil, to step into your living room and deliver a one-of-a-kind talk show performance.
The first guest on Jack's show tonight is Christou, a psychic with the ability to communicate with the spirits of the deceased. Initially, the show was humorous, with Christou being exposed as a fraud, causing the audience to burst into laughter, and Jack openly mocking him. However, things took a sudden turn when Christou screamed in pain, sweating profusely with wide, terrified eyes. In an unexpected trance, Christou asked if anyone knew who Minnie was, explaining that her spirit was filled with immense suffering. While the audience was confused, Carmichael, a former magician known for debunking frauds, accused Christou of faking everything. A heated argument erupted until Jack revealed that Minnie was the nickname of his late wife.
Amidst the shouting, Carmichael accused Jack of staging the drama with Christou to boost TV ratings. At that moment, Christou began to show signs of exhaustion, coughing and vomiting a thick black liquid. The crew quickly called for an ambulance, but Christou died on the way to the hospital—a fact Jack would only find out much later. For now, Jack welcomed his next guests, Dr. June and young Lily, the sole survivor of a massacre at the Satanic church led by Szandor D'Abo. Lily is believed to be possessed by a follower of the demon Abraxas, Mr. Wriggles.
Carmichael continues to mock the existence of evil spiritual forces as if they were cheap entertainment. To prove Carmichael wrong, Jack pleads with Dr. June to summon the demon inside Lily to join the interview, unaware that it is the deadly beginning.
The Grove secret society
According to many reputable newspapers, Jack’s success today is not only due to the great effort and love that Minnie has for him, but he also receives strong support from the secret society The Grove — a group made up of aristocrats and politicians in the redwood forests of California. This is a very interesting detail because right from the name, one can see the close connection between The Grove and the real-life Bohemian Grove secret society. With the motto inspired by the play A Midsummer Night's Dream by the great playwright William Shakespeare:
Weaving spiders come not here
This means that spider webs don’t linger here, this secret society gathers the elite across America, particularly politicians and many tycoons close to the Republican Party. Notable among them are some powerful names like Samuel Armacost, Chairman and CEO of Bank of America, and David Rockefeller, Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, along with a host of other government officials like former President Bush and his son, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and James Baker, or former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan.
According to a report by famous documentary filmmaker Alex Jones, who has spent many years pursuing and researching this, from the beginning of the 20th century until now, every Republican president, such as Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon, has been a member of Bohemian Grove. Every July, they hold a two-week meeting in tents hidden beneath the cypress trees to discuss not only the future of America but of humanity as a whole. The Manhattan Project by Oppenheimer was even first discussed here in 1942.
At this location, many bizarre rituals are also performed, and they even conduct occult ceremonies to summon spiritual forces to assist them. It sounds surreal, but these are the accusations that our host Jack Delroy has to face. In a scene before Mr. Wriggles was invited by Dr. June to come out and meet everyone, as he walked past Lily, the little girl asked him:
Don't I look already pretty, Jack?
Lily’s question made Jack freeze for a moment and turn back to look at her, as it seemed to confirm that the members of The Grove secret society, which Jack belongs to, have many activities related to children. The problem is, how could Lily, who spent her entire life growing up in the Satanic Church run by Szandor D'Abo, know such an earth-shattering secret? If you listen closely, you will notice that Lily’s voice at that moment sounds exactly like Minnie — Jack’s late wife, whom he loved dearly. This makes everything even more horrifying. How could Lily mimic his wife's voice so perfectly, and why is Minnie involved in this?
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Deal with the Devil
In the surreal segment that takes place at the end of the film, we see Jack reliving many memorable moments in his life. Most notably, Jack is seen standing with the followers of The Grove secret society, accepting a secret pact with the devil in order to maintain his status and fame. As with every legend we know about demons, the victim must sacrifice their soul and the person they love the most. Sadly, Minnie was the one who had to die. Did Jack know about the consequences at the time of making the deal? I think not, because Minnie’s illness came completely out of the blue, and even Jack was shocked and devastated. It’s important to note that the media repeatedly emphasized that Minnie didn’t smoke, yet she was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. This explains the look of deep regret in Jack’s eyes when he meets Minnie again at the end of the film, as her soul is now eternally trapped in the dark abyss of hell.
I was worried they wouldn’t let you see me
So, who are they here? Could it be the demon tormenting Minnie’s soul day and night, or is it actually the followers of The Grove secret society, the ones who helped Jack establish the pact to sell his soul to the devil under the guise of supporting and protecting him? Jack had no idea that the price for his success would be his wife’s death. However, her appearance and the devastating illness helped Jack achieve the highest ratings in the show’s history. One could say Jack reached the peak of glory and lost everything at the same time. In an interview with Variety, actor David Dastmalchian, who played Jack Delroy, shared:
It’s never overt. It’s a nudge on the shoulder, a whisper in the ear. If someone had come up to Jack with a contract that said, “For ‘Night Owls’ to be number one, you’re going to have to kill Millie” — there’s no way Jack would have participated in that.
The Demon of Light and Darkness
There is one detail that, when I first watched, made me feel extremely conflicted — the death of Christou. After an unexpected possession, Christou confirmed that some entity had told him the name Minnie. Assuming that Christou was truly possessed by the angry spirit of Minnie, who died unjustly, why would she kill an innocent person like Christou, someone she didn’t even know? That seems completely illogical. It also couldn’t have been Mr. Wriggles in Lily’s body, because after that unfortunate incident, Jack asked the show’s producer:
How’s June? Did they land? Is she okay?
We can see that at the time Christou was possessed, Dr. June and Lily had only just landed a few minutes earlier. In fact, it was only through a séance that June was able to put Lily into a deep sleep, allowing the demon inside her to reveal itself. So, which entity possessed Christou?
According to Dr. June, the evil spirit inside Lily is a disciple of Abraxas, the demon of light and darkness. In The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead, Bishop Stephan A. Hoeller wrote the following:
Abraxas generates truth and falsehood, good and evil, light and darkness with the same word and in the same deed. Therefore Abraxas is truly the terrible one.
...To see him means blindness;
To know him is sickness;
To worship him is death;
To fear him is wisdom;
Not to resist him means liberation.
From here, we can infer that the entity possessing Christou is the powerful demon Abraxas. It was enraged because, after helping Jack reach the peak of fame, he withdrew from the public eye, drowning in grief over his wife’s death for months. This not only caused the ratings for the next season of the show to drop but also showed Jack’s defiance toward the demon. As a result, Jack would be punished, forced to endure the pain of losing a loved one once again by having to personally kill Minnie, as we see at the end of the film. This is the darkness that Abraxas brought upon him. However, in another sense, Jack’s action also ends Minnie’s torment and the pain tearing her apart from the inside. Viewed in this way, the light that the demon gave Jack is the chance to free his beloved wife from eternal hell. This perfectly aligns with what Carl G. Jung described about the demon: "light and darkness with the same word and in the same deed."
As for Christou, why did he have to die? It’s important to note that by the time he was in the ambulance heading to the hospital, Dr. June and Lily had already arrived. According to Carmichael, Christou was a deceitful fraud, like a parasite feeding off the grief of others for his own gain. Clearly, Christou had no supernatural powers and couldn’t communicate with the dead. Most likely, Christou’s actions angered the evil spirits, and he was unlucky enough that Mr. Wriggles was nearby. No wonder Christou vomited thick black liquid, symbolizing his long-standing lies. He kept vomiting until his organs followed, a truly brutal way to be punished.
Warning signs
Besides the obvious ominous warning signs, such as Christou falling ill, Lily’s strange words to Jack, and the loudspeaker that couldn’t be turned off, creating an unpleasant screeching noise, we also notice a few other unusual signs. One of them is the blurring and distortion in various frames. This first happens when Christou is possessed — the screen glitches rapidly as Christou screams in pain. The second time is when Lily steps out from backstage; at this moment, only her image is affected, even though there are three people present, including Jack and Dr. June. Lastly, it occurs during Mr. Wriggles’ appearance in the summoning ritual. One of the reasons for the screen interference could be due to electromagnetic fields or excessive electrical power affecting the camera’s signal. This explains why, when the demon reveals its true form, two lightning bolts shoot from its hands, and something like an electrical current surrounds its body. No wonder electrical sparks flash through the room, causing the light bulbs to blow out.
If you pay close attention to the man wearing the skeleton costume, you’ll notice something interesting. The image of death appears no less than three times, even showing up in Jack’s hallucinations when his mind spirals back to the day he signed the contract. It seems to represent death, a forewarning that the demon will haunt the show and the rest of Jack’s life.
It’s also worth noting that the demon confirms it knows Jack, which is an important point.
Don’t be a fool. We go way back. We met amongst the tall trees. Remember?
In truth, it’s somewhat unfair to say Jack didn’t realize this, as it reminds him of the secret society’s ritual at The Grove in the past. However, if Jack had firmly stopped the show right then, preventing Carmichael from hypnotizing the entire audience and giving the demon a chance to escape, perhaps the tragedy could have been avoided.
Television — The Gateway Connecting Demons to Humans
Looking at the entire work, this is definitely my favorite part. If you remember, when Carmichael hypnotized everyone, he turned the clock into a small spiral and asked the camera to zoom in closely so everyone could see it. Then, we witnessed the strange hallucination that happened to Gus. Flashing back to the film’s opening sequence, viewers were shown a series of deeply troubling events in America during the early 1970s: rampant street violence, an energy crisis, and above all, the Vietnam War, which became a divisive topic across the nation. This was in addition to the tumultuous late 1960s, marked by numerous political assassinations and civil rights movements that contributed to a period of dark instability. Fear had never spread so quickly. People lost faith in everything, while television spread terror right into the living rooms of every household.
However, television also became a stimulant, allowing Americans to temporarily escape the harsh reality and lose themselves in illusions. The spiral that Carmichael created is an apt metaphor for how the media hypnotizes the public, injecting into their minds what they want to hear and see, covering up the grim reality. Ironically, Jack — who had spent years hypnotizing the public with the Night Owls show — asked people to throw away their only stimulant. This shows that Jack felt remorse for the sins he had committed. He feared that the demon Abraxas, like Carmichael, could manipulate anyone through television and wanted the audience to break free from the illusion the media painted. This also explains why, in the final scene, after stabbing Minnie and being horrified to realize that it was Lily who lay in a pool of blood, Jack repeatedly uttered the same phrase Carmichael had used when interrupting his own hypnosis process:
Dreamer, here! Awake!
Despite not accepting the harsh reality, the truth remains the truth. The sound of the police siren echoing from afar is one of those truths. It cannot be concealed; it cannot be forgotten with temporary laughter amidst the horror. America is writhing in pain and crisis.
Conclusion
Though not overly terrifying, Late Night with the Devil carries a heavy dose of satire about the forces trying to manipulate the public with gaudy glitz to cover up the rot underneath. However, just as the film received praise from critics, it became embroiled in an unnecessary controversy for using AI technology to create images in the film. Although it was only for a few brief seconds, it sparked a debate about inequality and recalled the Hollywood strike in 2023 related to artificial intelligence. Setting aside these controversies, it remains a quality work that is worth watching. Achieving a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and becoming the highest-rated horror film of the year so far, Late Night with the Devil has been described by Stephen King as "absolutely brilliant" for its unique and creative storyline.
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