Late Night With The Devil is directed by Cameron Carines and Colin Cairnes both of which previously directed 100 Bloody Acres (2012) and Scare Campaign (2016).
Late Night With The Devil was a film that I was incredibly excited to see, from the concept alone it sounded fantastic and luckily that was the case. Before that however I will mention the AI usage in this film, even though I absolutely loved this movie the bits of AI used on the “Please Stand By” messages is very pointless since you could have easily gotten actual artists to do that. Luckily it was nowhere near enough to hurt the movie itself but the fact it was used at all is disappointing.
Outside of that Late Night With The Devil is an incredibly creative horror film, the film captures the spirit of a 70s late night show down from the narration at the beginning to the actions of the characters as well as the completely off the walls script. Right from the beginning the film resembles a late night show and even one of those random TV news documentary type of segments in this case one being about the film’s main character Jack Delroy who is played by David Dastmalchian.
David Dastmalchian is the key part of what makes Late Night With The Devil work so incredibly well, yes you have the look of a 70s late night show down. But if you don’t have someone who mirrors a late night show host as authentically as possibly then that could lead into a mess. Luckily Dastmalchian completely masters the performance right from when he appears on screen to the very end, he captures the mannerisms, speech, the humor and the personality of a late night show host. It’s mesmerizing to see and instantly draws you in, he gives by far one of the best performances so far this year and truly delivers on every single level.
The rest of the film is truly fantastic, while the show goes on you get this sense in the back of your mind that a lot doesn’t seem right, Late Night With The Devil accomplishes bringing the viewer along for the ride and rewards them with an incredibly bizarre final act that truly leaves you frightened and fascinated, it absolutely does remind me of some of the films from the V/H/S franchise. Only that the execution is much better here and makes for a far more interesting experience as well.
A slight criticism is the use of black and white filming, while I sort of get the attention I don’t think it completely matches with the rest of the film. I kind of like that these moments appear when they cut to commercial break, these moments do have some great and natural dialogue between Jack, his guests and his crew but when you compare these moments with when the late night show goes on they sort of pale in comparison. Having that said I don’t hate these moments just the use of black and white is very unfitting and doesn’t exactly add to the film’s already fantastic charm.
Finally we have the third act which I won’t spoil but will say that the build up to it is incredibly well done and really matches the build up to a 70s talk show. What is also great is the film captures the late night tv energy, what I mean by this is seeing bizarre commercials or bumpers (think Adult Swim on Cartoon Network) a lot of the third act has that sort of energy going on and it really works incredibly well.
Overall Late Night With The Devil is an incredibly creative horror film that is filled with humor, terror and bizarre moments that will have you wondering what’s going to happen next.
Late Night With The Devil is available on Shudder.
9/10 A
Jerome Reviews... 