(Credits: Far Out / Braden Moran)
Thu 20 November 2025 20:45, UK
One of the good things about the horror specialists Shudder, and there are many because if you like very spooky movies it’s pretty much where you find the best ones, is that now and again it throws up some fantastic word of mouth scarefests that you might have totally missed otherwise, and one of those is without doubt Late Night With the Devil starring David Dastmalchian.
The 2023 horror is a fantastic mash-up of different genres; a little found footage, some documentary, some outright gore and the basis of a talk show that goes pretty disastrously wrong. Dastmalchian is the charismatic host battling bravely to stop his guests becoming demonically possessed while continuing to hold the show together in the movie set in the 1970s.
It was Dastmalchian’s most visible lead role to date although he has been appearing in major movies as far back as Nolan’s classic Batman film The Dark Knight as the Joker’s henchman, and he has also appeared in three of Denis Villeneuve’s finest movies, Blade Runner 2049, Dune and the gripping thriller Prisoners from 2012, for which he received considerable acclaim for his performance as the creepy kidnapper Bob Taylor.
Dastmalchian has also put in considerable work where superhero franchises are concerned, not just with Batman but also in Marvel’s Ant Man, The Flash and Suicide Squad. But it seems that the darker side of movies is where his real passion lies and he has several new horror projects in the works, including Mads Mikkelsen’s Dust Bunny and a newly announced sci-fi horror movie called The Cure.
No doubt some of that passion stems from a movie that Dastmalchian told The Guardian scarred him for life, saying: “It was called Dark Night of the Scarecrow. And it was a film about a man who rescues a little girl from a dog attack, but the town blames him for the attack and they don’t realise that he was actually saving her. They chase him out into a farm and he hides, dressed up like a scarecrow. They stab him with a pitchfork, they shoot up, and they cover up their crime.”
Adding, “Then, slowly this scarecrow starts showing up in the middle of the night, getting them. It totally messed me up at age seven.”
The 1981 movie is indeed pretty horrible; for one thing scarecrows are absolutely terrifying regardless, for another it’s set in the deep South of the United States which is scary enough a place as it is, and for another it has little kids in it, and little kids in horror movies is never a fun time.
The film is made more effective as, rather like Late Night With the Devil it doesn’t really have any household names (although Marlon Brando’s sister is in it) and it was shot on a low budget using real locations. Some critics have gone on to call it one of the best ‘made for TV’ movies of all time, and it has even influenced the likes of Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan.
Dastmalchian’s turn as a demonic TV host meanwhile has definitely kicked up his visibility and casting chances; he worked again with Nolan on the multi-Oscar winning Oppenheimer and has been cast as ‘M Bison’ in the upcoming Street Fighter film due to release next year. He’ll also be in the new Rhea Seehorn and Jamie Lee-Curtis horror movie Sender.
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