I was digging through movie recommendations on TikTok when I came across “Late Night With The Devil” ranked by some guy as a “top 4” movie in 2024.
Maybe the year has been mostly shitty when it comes to movie productions, otherwise there's no way this piece would be in the top 20 list.
Premiered at the south by the southwest(SXSW) Film Festival in March 2023, “Late Night With The Devil” has its story set in 1977 and follows a fictional late-night talk show called "Night Owls," hosted by Jack Delroy that turns into a horrific experience(barely) during a Halloween special.
First off, the intended genre for this Australian production is “horror” but it quite simply turned out to be drama and comedy that tries to sneak in a scare but could only manage to startle a 4 years old.
Make no mistake, it was subtly entertaining, but if a movie has its focus on a specific genre, it ought to deliver on that end. The movie is about 1 hour 30 minutes long and with 1 hour being used entirely to attempt a scare.
David Dastmalchian plays the role of Jack Delroy, the host of “Night Owls” as a popular and ever gunning for high ratings host who crashes along the line due to losing his wife to Cancer and hopes to make a comeback with the Halloween special of the show.
I love the character Jack Delroy very much as his performance really anchored the film. And by his performance I mean his ability to carry the “Night Owls” show in the movie so well that it almost felt like a “real-time” show.
The show, though tagged a horror film, is quite honestly a comedy, and that very art was well captained by Jack Delroy.
To shed lights on why I am of this opinion:
The show “Night Owls” originally is comedy centric and was frankly carried that way through the first 30 minutes of the movie.
Sure, there were a few “told highlights” of horrific events and speculations of Jack Delroy belonging to a men's only secret cult that may have contributed to his fame, but these all were attempts to build up a narrative for what's to come in the other half of the film.
These several moving parts I must say while interesting as they are well believable(recall I said I almost felt I was watching a live show) did not really aid the horrors that were developed for the Halloween special show.
screenshot
This is an opinion of which many other viewers share. The build up horror lacked any movable substance. The bridge horror however, which involves a hypnosis performed by a guest who was in disbelief of any of the events being true, thus played on the crowd to prove how easy it is to trick the minds of people struck a few cords.
And the horror itself? Well, while this part was going on, I fell asleep, had a weird dream, woke up and had to rewatch the led down closing event.
This would have sincerely been a better watch if it centered more on the comedy and used the horror as a bridge for more intense comedy.
You know, like a “world ending horror” taking place but people are just too entertained, laughing all through kinda film.
For a moment though, it did feel like this was the direction of the film as the demon was quite frankly mocked until people's necks began to snap obviously.
A solid 6.0/10 as a comedy and a 3.5/10 as a horror film.
To close this off, I just want to say that never in my life have I seen so many company names being displayed before the start of a film. How can so many people be involved in this shit and it still sucked?
I think the ending definitely ruins the film. For me it's much more like the John Carpenter style of 'horror' where it isn't actually scary, but has a lot of fun themes from the genre. Definitely not trying to actually scare you. Also definitely not one of the top films of the year, that's for sure.
But for a small indie film I think it did great at trying something different. A bit of a commentary on how the world of television holds no limits and people will do whatever they can to maintain their fame.
I found the film entertaining for the most part, largely due to the comedy but I was at the same quite enthusiastic about what would come given the name "late night with the devil" and it disappointed on that end.