LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film opens with a narration talking about the turbulent and violent times in the early 1970’s. In the midst of the darkness, people at home found entertainment with talk show host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) and his late night show “Night Owls”, which made an attempt to separate itself from others like Johnny Carson by showcasing odd guests. Jack was always backed up by his wife Madeleine (Georgina Haig), until she became ill with lung cancer and tragically succumbed to it in 1976. Jack’s show starts to suffer in ratings, and he appears to be on the verge of falling into obscurity. One year later, on Halloween night, Jack has plans to get his show back on the map. The narrator then says the following film is the last known footage of the episode with behind-the-scenes looks.

The theme of the show is of the occult, with Jack promising some spooky guests for the evening. Jack’s first guest is a self-proclaimed psychic named Christou (Fayssal Bazzi). He begins to demonstrate his “gifts” through cold readings, first by trying to reach the spirit of the deceased wife of someone in the audience, only for his guess of the couple’s names to be incorrect. Christou then saves face by speaking to a mother and daughter about their late son/brother who committed suicide, which they confirm. Before Christou is done, he seems to hear a sharp ringing noise and calls out to anyone asking if they know the name “Minnie”. Jack cuts to commercial.

During the break, Jack is seen telling is his producer Leo Fiske (Josh Quong Tart) that “Minnie” is a private pet name for Madeleine that nobody else would have known about. Leo expresses his concerns to Jack, while Christou is looking unwell.

The show returns with second guest, former magician turned skeptic Carmichael The Conjurer (Ian Bliss). He is there to disprove Christou’s claims that he is psychic and try to show the audience that anything they see or hear are just parlor tricks. Jack backs up Christou by telling everyone that “Minnie” is what he called his wife. Christou and Carmichael argue more, which ends when Christou begins to spew black bile all over the place. The show cuts to commercial again while Christou is rushed to the hospital. The crew reacts with horror over what they witnessed.

The next guests are parapsychologist June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and a 13-year-old girl named Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) who was the sole survivor of a Satanic church’s mass suicide. Lilly claims that she has a friend named “Mr. Wriggles” that sometimes comes out. Carmichael is quick to assume they are phonies as well, so Jack opts for June to conduct a seance after the commercial break. Backstage, Jack is told that Christou has died at the hospital, and he tells Leo to not let anybody else know.

The seance begins, with “Mr. Wriggles” taking over Lilly’s body, causing her face and skin to look demonic and for her voice to sound sinister. The demon taunts Jack and suggests that he and June had an affair, and also telling Jack they have met before “by the tall trees”. The electricity starts to go out of control and Lilly begins to float off the ground before June cuts off the connection and ends the seance.

After the next break, Carmichael challenges Jack to prove that he can pull off tricks to fool the audience as well. He calls upon Jack’s show partner Gus McConnell (Rhys Auteri) for the demonstration. Carmichael takes out a pocketwatch and hypnotizes Gus. To the audience, it then appears as though Gus feels worms inside his body, and he begins to rip open his stomach to find them coming out of him, right before a large worm bursts through Gus’s head. Carmichael then snaps his fingers, and Gus appears totally normal. The footage is played back, showing Gus just believing he was filled with worms.

Jack then decides to replay the footage from the seance, showing that every weird thing that happened with Lilly really did happen. A brief flash is seen, and Jack has the footage slowed down frame-by-frame to reveal a frightening image of Madeleine’s spirit appearing next to him. Lilly then becomes demonic again and begins to bring the set down. Gus has his head twisted 180 degrees, Carmichael is burnt to death, and June and Leo are also killed. The studio audience begins to run for their lives.

Jack then finds himself experiencing horrifying visions of himself throughout past episodes of the show before finding himself confronted with evidence that he was involved in the Satanic church that Lilly was part of. For the price of his success, Madeleine became sick with cancer despite never once smoking in her life. Jack is then lying in bed with a dying Madeleine, who begs him to put her out of her misery. Jack spots a dagger on the nightstand and sticks it in Madeleine’s stomach.

Jack snaps out of it and finds that he has actually stabbed and killed Lilly. He stands amidst the massacre on his set, hearing police sirens incoming while he can only stand in shock and repeatedly mutter “Dreamers stay awake…”

In the 1970s, Jack Delroy is the host of a popular late night talk show, "Night Owls". After the death of his beloved wife Madeleine, Jack returns to TV but the show suffers in the ratings. On Halloween night 1977, Jack hosts an occult themed episode of the show to hopefully give him a much needed boost.

Jack's first guest is a medium named Christou, who experiences a painful noise when he does a cold reading and gets the name "Minnie", which was a private pet name Jack had for Madeleine. The next guest, Carmichael The Conjurer, tries to prove that Christou and anything having to do with the occult is fake. Christou spews black bile and is taken to the hospital where he dies. After the break, Jack brings on parapsychologist June Ross-Mitchell and her subject, a 13-year-old girl named Lilly who was the sole survivor of a Satanic church mass suicide. June conducts a seance where the demon inside Lilly, whom she calls "Mr. Wriggles", speaks out loud and taunts Jack.

Carmichael attempts to prove that people were hypnotized to believing they saw Lilly possessed, which he demonstrates with Jack's show partner Gus McConnell, by making him and everyone else think they see worms coming out of Gus. Jack has the seance footage played back, showing that everything that happened to Lilly was real, and he briefly sees a ghoulish image of Madeleine's spirit standing next to him. "Mr. Wriggles" comes back out, leading to the deaths of Gus, June, Carmichael, and Jack's producer Leo Fiske.

Jack then experiences horrifying visions, strongly suggesting he had involvement in the Satanic church for his show's success, and this is what led to Madeleine's cancer diagnosis. He sees himself in bed with her as she begs for him to end her pain. Jack grabs a dagger and sticks it in Madeleine's stomach, only for him to snap back to reality and find that he has killed Lilly. Jack stands in horror amidst the bodies on his set, muttering to himself before police arrive.