Late Night With the Devil

This is out on Shudder now, should be on demand soon. I've been looking forward to it for over a year, probably, and finally get to see it tonight.

I watched this today. An interesting concept and there are some effective moments. It's nifty and mostly fun, but never quite reaches greatness. I wouldn't consider it one of the best recent horror films, but it is an enjoyable and satisfying watch.

I couldn't NOT recall the inspiration (if satanic stuff can be inspired).....TV junk show host Joe Pyne and the Devil Himself, Anton Szandor Lavey, a bit low on FX compared to the movie trailer -

Can't imagine watching this at home, in a theater it was such a great communal experience with a whole audience all feeling the same heavy dread... and then the big reveal!

Which of course I can't reveal here...

I would tend to agree.

Im gonna try and convince my buddies to watch it over the weekend if they havent seen it already.

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The movie Late Night With the Devil itself was inspired by an Australian talk show hosted by American Don Lane. I remember Don Lane and his show - he used to like inviting the likes of Uri Geller and psychics on, he really believed in that stuff. One day he invited a famous skeptic (James Randi) on the show and had a huge fight with him.

Here's "psychic" Doris Stokes on his show, followed by the James Randi moment - the clips are introduced by Australian Bert Newton and Don Lane.

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Pyne went down this road starting in the early 60's. His "guest list" included lots of political outsiders from the '60's, from right-wing to Black Panthers, get rich quick schemes, psychics, early gay rights advocates, mind readers and wacko UFO believers. Satanists, including Levay, provided some additional fodder for Pyne's parade of strangeness. Pyne was gone by 1970, a chain smoker who got lung cancer.

I enjoyed this. Unfortunately, good-not-great, which normally I'd be pleased with but in this case I'd been looking forward to it for a long time. It creates a lot of possibilities and resolves them reasonably well, but there were a few points where it was obvious they were mentioning X because it was going to factor into something later.

Also, this is gonna sound weird, but...I'm surprised it wasn't a little scarier. It's not a pacing problem, it really takes its time and allows dread to build, but there's a little something missing in the execution. I felt very little dread, even though the creation of that distinct emotion seems like it's the entire aim of the film. When there is some kind of (saying this to be non-spoilery) "release," tension-wise, it just feels like a thing that happened.

That said, it's well-acted, they nailed the aesthetic and the tone of the era and lots of other things. It's ambitious and creative and interesting basically the whole time. I admire the swing and I'm glad to have watched it.

I'm curious, what put this on your radar so long ago? I think I hadn't heard of it until the week before it hit theaters here and don't think I was familiar with any of the names on the film (outside of Michael Ironside doing the initial voice over).

Oh, yippee, another place I can talk about how beyond terrible this movie is.

I really love high concept films, and I've enjoyed the wave of "smart" horror we've seen over the last decade. I'm always intrigued by horror but kinda disgusted with a lot of it, so the prospect of finding something that inspires genuine dread, while kind of awful to actually experience, is always tantalizing. And this had all the makings of something potentially thoughtful. And that does turn out to be the case in that it at least has those aspirations, and isn't just about splatter.

A few other reasons:

1. The setup is particularly inspired, because the "let's all keep smiling and keep the show moving" vibe of talk shows dovetails perfectly with a horror film's need to keep characters skeptical. In other words, it's a reason for the people to stay in the haunted house.

2. I've long been interested in late night talk shows and it was evident from the first trailer that they put a lot of time into matching the feel and aesthetic of them (which they did, very well).

3. David Dastmalchian is an interesting/underrated character actor.

I also had some pet theories, as soon as I heard the premise, which would have been quite exciting to see played out, even though it didn't end up delivering on them. But this is the back and forth I have with concept films, be they sci-fi or horror: I keep coming back for those rare occasions where it completely Goes There, even if that remains a rare thing.

For the collectors out there:

Liked it more than I thought I would. Echoes of Ghostwatch and The Exorcist. David Dastmalchian is great as the talk show host doing a live spooky special. The ending though is a little disconnected from the rest, and it does have a few rather obvious Chekhov's gun type moments.

Oh and people on Letterboxd whining that some of the title cards are generated by AI need to have a re-think. It did not affect the film in the slightest. CGI has probably done more damage to the industry than AI.

6.9/10

The people losing their shit and being absolutist wankers are definitely blowing things out of proportion. What's new with modern discourse. But there is still the issue of using AI to replace creative jobs. Normally a film production would have had to pay someone to do those title cards, and now they can get this work done by AI instead. It does feel like a toe in the door for it to replace more and more work. I understand people wanting to put their foot down quickly on this one.



But that said, some of the things I've read are absurd and frequently show how little people even know about this issue. They just know they are supposed to be angry about something.


It should also be noted that this movies production was done before any regulations were put in writing, so let's instead focus on what happens with movies going forward from there. Plus, I also don't have as big a problem with lower budget productions outsourcing some small creative tasks to AI (I'd prefer they didn't, but I'm not going to cry that the walls are caving in if some occassionally do).

I have no idea if this is true but I read Villeneuve's Dune uses AI for some elements. I hope the same people are up in arms about that in equal measure.

Expecting any kind of consistent reaction in these matters is a tall ask. First you have to expect people to understand why they are angry outside of the fact they've seen other people angry. Second, if they already decided they liked Dune before finding this out, don't expect a retraction of their praise. People prefer not to believe they've ever been complicit in a war crime such as this

The increasing use of AI in film production sets a concerning precedent. It undermines the value of human creativity and effort, as studios may opt for AI-generated elements over those crafted by a dedicated creative team.

Regardless of the extent of its use, it’s disheartening to see AI replace human artistry. Art requires human input, vision, and passion, elements that AI lacks.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.