The secret society in Late Night with the Devil is very similar to a controversial real-world society founded in California in the late 1800s.

When Stephen King says a new film is “brilliant,” that’s a sign to horror fans to pay attention. After its premiere at SXSW in 2023, that’s just the word King used to describe Late Night with the Devil, an excellent new horror film that has received rave reviews and recently made it to streaming, where it’s setting records. Late Night with the Devil deserves that praise and more, as its cleverly staged story of a 1970s late-night talk show gone wrong is gripping, harrowing and a lot of creepy fun.

Late Night harkens back to the horror films of the 70s and 80s, and lead actor David Dastmalchian plays the host of the fictional show Night Owls to a perfect pitch of charm and desperation. In the film, it’s revealed that Dastmalchian’s character, Jack Delroy, is a member of a secret society and that he made an occult deal with the society to gain success. While the film is fiction, what fans of Late Night with the Devil may or may not be aware of is that the “Culte Du Grove” of the film is based on a real-world private organization with a history of bizarre rituals and a lot of controversy. With Late Night getting such good reviews, including from King, it’s worth a look into the odd world that inspired the film.

The “Culte Du Grove” of Late Night with the Devil Is a Real Place in California

In Late Night, a fake documentary frames the recording of the episode of the show that is the meat of the film, telling the story of Jack Delroy’s drive to become the top late-night show. The host is failing at this goal, and the documentary reveals that Jack is a member of a mysterious group called The Grove, calling it a “men-only club located in the redwoods of California.” The film goes on to say that The Grove was established in the 1800s, has politicians and major businessmen among its members and that it’s known for its arcane rituals and for making and breaking careers.

Though nothing like the events of Late Night has, of course, been confirmed to happen in the real world, pretty much every other detail about The Grove visited by Jack Delroy (played exceptionally by horror-icon Dastmalchian) parallels the very real Bohemian Grove, where the Bohemian Club of San Francisco holds its yearly meeting. The Bohemian Club was founded in 1872, back when the American West was still considered “wild.” The club was originally for young journalists, who often called themselves “bohemians” and who wanted a private place to drink and hang out with other men who were fans of the arts. They pooled money together to rent a room off Sacramento Street in San Francisco and founded the club, of which the journalists were full members and their artist friends were honorary members.

Not being particularly cash-heavy, the men of the Bohemian Club soon opened membership up to businessmen who could better fund the organization. Very quickly and unsurprisingly, these richer members became the dominant force in the club, which was resisted by some members. Money won out, however, and many famed artists became Bohemians over the decades. This includes writers and poets (Jack London among them), painters, composers and even actors like Charles Coburn; however, their names are generally outshone in terms of fame by members that were politicians and industry titans, like Newt Gingrich, William Randolph Hearst, Herbert Hoover and Henry Kissinger.

Many presidents have also been official members of the Bohemian Club, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, but it’s the private compound where these men meet every year that has made the club infamous, and which inspired Late Night with the Devil (Heath Ledger’s Joker being another inspiration). Starting from a party in 1878, the Bohemians made getting drunk in the redwoods a tradition, and in 1899 they purchased a piece of land in the forests in Monte Rio, California. Over the years the members built up the land into what they call Bohemian Grove, adding numerous buildings and purchasing more land around the area, creating a 2,700-acre compound that is supposedly heavily guarded and very hard for outsiders to gain access to.

The Owl Is a Major Symbol of the Bohemian Grove and the Center of Its Infamous Ritual

What happens at Bohemian Grove was long a close-kept secret, but over the years, former workers and people who have infiltrated the yearly get-together there have revealed much of the details. Particularly, a writer named Phillip Weiss extensively planned an incursion into the Grove, using members of the anti-Grove Bohemian Grove Action Network to successfully infiltrate for the extent of the week-long event. Weiss described the Grove in a 1989 article for Spy magazine, saying that the Grove is essentially some of the richest and most powerful men in the world drinking, eating, being entertained and privately discussing deals that will affect whole nations. On an interesting side note, Late Night‘s one bit of major criticism has been that its depictions of this gathering were portrayed with still images made with AI.

While many accounts of the Grove, including Weiss’s, say that the event is mostly silly machismo, with a heavy focus on getting hammered and performing jokey or overserious songs and plays, there is also a creepy side to the goings-on at the Grove. Most of this is centered around the confirmed use of ritual, including paintings of naked women and many symbols representing the demand for secrecy, often repeating the motto “Weaving Spiders Come Not Here.” The Grove’s biggest symbol, however, is an owl. In fact, a 40-foot owl statue set by a large artificial lake is the centerpiece of Bohemian Grove, and the focal point for the Grove’s most controversial ritual, the “Cremation of Care.” Much of this imagery is repeated at the beginning and end of Late Night with the Devil.

This ritual and the incredibly powerful men that perform it are the sources of the Grove’s infamy, and for good reason. Recordings of it have leaked, and it is true thatBohemian Grove’s the Cremation of Care has a decidedly occult and creepy feel to it. The men wear colorful hooded robes, with Weiss reporting that “everyone hushed as a column of hooded figures carrying torches emerged solemnly from the woods 100 yards away, bearing a corpse down to the water.” He goes on to quote the owl statue, which speaks with a recorded voice of Walter Cronkite (a member), saying “Fools! When will ye learn that me ye cannot slay? Year after year ye burn me in this Grove…. But when again ye turn your feet toward the marketplace, am I not waiting for you, as of old?” Though real, this language very much echoes that in some of the best films about cults ever.

Considering the group’s ritual burning, dark-hooded priests, and talk of “fairy unguents,” it’s easy to see why some would be unsettled by the Grove. The place has become central to numerous conspiracy theories, especially after rabble-rouser Alex Jones became famous for breaking in and witnessing the ceremony in 2000. Jones claimed to have seen “Satanic” sacrifice occurring, and it’s not hard to connect The Grove of Late Night with the Devil to Bohemian Grove and this ritual. Its members say it is only meant to symbolize leaving the worries of the world behind, but the fact that these influential men do indeed perform these activities certainly sounds like ritualistic horror from the movies. As Phillip Weiss puts it succinctly:

“Every summer for more than a century, the all-male Bohemian Club of San Francisco has led a retreat into a redwood forest 70 miles north of the city… The often bizarre rites have elevated what was once a provincial club for San Franciscans embarrassed by the rude manners of the Wild West into the most exclusive club in the United States, with 2,300 members drawn from the whole of the American establishment and a waiting list 33 years long.”

Late Night with the Devil Sensationalizes the Grove, But the Real Grove Is Plenty Controversia

There has been no confirmation of anything happening at Bohemian Grove quite to the extent of what does in Late Night, but that does not mean that the place hasn’t had its share of controversies. Beyond the infiltrations and the rituals, the Grove has particularly been criticized for its practice of logging redwoods and, even more, its no-women policies. The Grove has been sued repeatedly over the latter, with one suit in 1978 by the Californian state government eventually leading to the club being forced to hire some women in 1987. This has not set well with the club, which still puts restrictions on when and where women are allowed to be in the Grove.

One moment at the Grove is elevated above all others in terms of its effect on the world, though, and that was in September 1942. Though it was left out of the Oppenheimer biopic, which had other controversial omissions, the Manhattan Project met at the Grove during the 1942 event, including Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence and members of the S-1 Executive Committee. It is said that this meeting led directly to the creation of the atomic bomb, something Bohemian Club members hold as a point of pride but which has caused critics much concern that such a world-shaking thing could happen at a private men’s club with no oversight.

Whatever one feels about the Bohemian Club and its mysterious all-men’s Grove, it’s certainly a fascinating look into the world of the ultra-rich and powerful. Controversy and interest in this nearly 150-year-old gathering have been there since the thing began in the late 1800s, but with more and more details released every year and a growing obsession with cults and the occult in the media, it only makes sense that someone would make a movie extrapolating the details into horror. The film may be fiction, but Late Night with the Devil is based enough in fact to make what is already a well-crafted and well-acted piece of horror into something even more frightening. Because, after doing the research, the film may be closer to reality than anyone realizes.