The 1970s– an era of “unrest and mistrust, fear and violence,” says the opening minutes of Colin and Cameron Cairnes’ Late Night with the Devil, accurately reflecting the viewpoint of the burgeoning moral panic of the time. Fear mongering-ish as that sounds, after a decade of Christianity in crisis mode– including a 1966 Times cover asking, “Is God Dead?”– and the “Satanic” cult murders by the Manson Family in 1969, the ’70s were a time of peak (at least until then) obsession with all things occult, planting the seeds and ultimately leading to what would be known as the full-blown Satanic Panic in the decade to follow. The devil was believed to be real, and he was to be feared, expelled, and/or worshiped– in real life and reflected in dozens and dozens of horror films and countless categories of other media within that era.

Late Night with the Devil toys with all this,...