Fallout.
The Fall Guy

Late Night with the Devil.

What do you want and how much do you want it? That's the question faced by the horrified guests on "Night Owls with Jack Delroy." Delroy (David Dastmalchian) has everything a successful talk show host needs. He's articulate, comfortable bantering with the audience and has a comfortable rapport with his celebrity guests. He does the shallow opening monologue, makes jokes at the expense of the band leader/sidekick, gets into the audience, and conducts interviews. This is the work done by every talk show host night in and night out. The difference between success and failure is how many viewers like the host as a person.

For Delroy it all works and he's rewarded with a TV show. Then punished by going head to head with Johnny Carson. And more people like Johnny. A decade into a 30 year TV career, and after moving the Tonight Show from New York to LA, Carson was a juggernaut. Delroy's show is suffering so for Halloween he goes all in. It goes all wrong.

Presented as an unedited archival broadcast this is a horror movie where the kick comes at the end. The tension builds through the broadcast as both the filmmakers and the guests manipulate the viewer. Dastmalchian shows good range as a man close to losing what he has left. Ian Bliss's skeptical Vegas magician channels Orson Welles and James Randi. As for Ingrid Torelli, she's unsettling from the moment she gazes into the studio camera.

I'll admit to an involuntary shiver in that space after the finale but before the end credits.

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