Late Night With the Devil (2023) review

The 1977 "Halloween Episode" of fictitious television program Night Owls (which allegedly competed with Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show) is unearthed and played in its entirety: host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian), who has a dodgy past of his own, first brings out "mentalist" Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), then skeptic Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss) and finally "parapsychologist" June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon), whose 13-year-old patient Lily (Ingrid Torelli) can supposedly communicate with El Diablo.  This is partially inspired by James Randi, who actively "debunked" claims by fellow magicians that claimed they had psychic powers (and challenged "spoon bender" Uri Geller), and Dastmalchian's inherent twitchiness plays nicely into the witchery that follows, but being confined to a single set doesn't do much of anything to add to the tension, it looks too "artificial" (despite the filters) and it's entirely too drawn out (the black and white behind-the-scenes footage is weak).  Lily's "final transformation" with a split-open head is kind of funny in that it could have come out of a video game, and those whining about the directors' use of A.I. for some of the images are simply denying the era we're living in: bow down to the algorithm.