Continuing on with themes most infernal, let’s look at a recent release with this fun looking piece that caught my eye—taking a new spin on the found footage idea, here’s Late Night With the Devil.
Starring David Dastmalchian and filmed in Australia (though all the accents are spot on from the rest of the cast), this one follows the rise of a talk show host in the 1970s, that most turbulent of eras in the US as the film notes. Jack Delroy is the host of a rising show that he wants more than anything to take to the top—and he’ll do anything to do so, bringing on phoney psychics who might not be so phoney, to eventually perhaps communing with things from hell itself.
The premise is wise enough to lean in somewhat as a satire on all-consuming media industries, and what makes it work is its willingness to lean into the whole format of the time. There’s pastiches here of skeptic James Randi (Ian Bliss) and there’s general things you may have seen before, like a slightly creepy young girl who may be closer in with evil entities than we may like, but as often, it’s about presentation, and the pacing here is done briskly enough that it remains a fun enough ride even if not completely original.
The found footage thing gets stretched a bit when we have ‘behind the scenes’ parts that must be filmed by the sneakiest and smallest camera in the world for the seventies, but by the end we get a whole other spin on it that does bring into question all we’ve seen. Without getting into too much, let’s just say that the climax will certainly have you both freaked out and laughing in the best way possible.
Overall it’s a straightforward enough but enjoyable ride—though the film did get somewhat overshadowed on its release over controversy for its brief snippets of AI art, in the faux-idents it intersperses throughout to replicate the TV show feel. I did notice something off about them on viewing, in the way most AI art seems ever so often now matter how ‘good’ it looks—and while I have, well, pretty negative looks to the whole idea of it (to put it mildly, sometimes I feel like writing a whole essay of four letter words on that), I can accept it if perhaps used in specific ways or to create a very specific effect. Here, while I think the debate was ultimately over a very minor aspect of the film, at the same time, it makes you wonder why they didn’t just take five minutes to cobble something together themselves for a rather simple effect.
Either way, for some fun enough shocks and chuckles, Late Night With the Devil is fine for a one-off watch—nothing strictly too new by itself, but it remixes what it does in an entertaining way itself. Nothing too sinful here for my tastes…
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