Late Night With the Devil – Review
Man, the buzz on this one was fantastic going in, and I couldn’t wait to watch David Dastmalchian really get a chance to lead a high-visibility project.
But in the end, what I hope to experience must bow to what I actually experience, and with that in mind, let’s take a look at this one.
**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
93 Minutes, Rated R
Written and Directed Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairns
Synopsis:
A live television broadcast in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation’s living rooms.
I was stoked about this one, as a good horror movie, especially a period one, is always welcome. For the most part, I think Late Night With the Devil delivers.
LNWTD has a great vibe; you can feel the 1970s oozing out of the screen, with its gaudy TV set color schemes and cheesy late-night banter, the feel of the film is fantastic.
Also great is Dastmalchian’s performance. It’s nice to see him get to stretch into such a prominent role while maintaining his trademark hang-doggery (yes, that is now a word. It’s mine; Deal with it) and spot-on timing. The story itself is great, though a tad telegraphed in terms of exposing people to the Devil.
Overall, a solid premise and good performances carry the day, though I do have one glaring issue with the way the directors executed the film.
Ostensibly a “found footage” entry (in this case, a replay of a live TV broadcast), the filmmakers go out of their way to explain that the film also includes never before seen behind-the-scenes footage, and that’s where the conceit of this film falls apart.
There are effectively no breaks between the broadcast itself and the behind-the-scenes material. this would be okay if this was simply put in place as “the studio cameras were always rolling/recording,” or even if a single camera was following Dastmalchian to document what was hoped to be a ground-breaking piece of television, but it’s not.
Cameras follow any character with information we might need to make the film work, and it is in the breaking of this cinematic conceit that undoes the overall effect of the film on its story.
This is why found-footage films are so hard to pull off convincingly: a failure to stick to that simple shooting conceit. most films try to work around that by blatantly introducing so many cameras for the cast to record with, but that simply further points out the limitations of the genre.
For a found-footage film to work — convincingly — it is necessary for some information to be missing; there will simply be things that are left uncovered for the audience. In the horror genre, this can work because the audience’s imagination can fill in the holes in ways a camera cannot.
This is also probably why there aren’t a ton of non-genre films that use this technique.
Late Night With the Devil fails to address this weakness of the genre, and the film suffers for it. Not fatally, of course, but objectively there is a better film in here with some tweaks to the script and shooting techniques.
Overall, however, I quite enjoyed this one, and I think you may, as well.
Late Night With the Devil is in theaters now and stars David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Fayssal Bazzi, Ingrid Torelli, Rhys Auteri, and Josh Quong Tart.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
Please don’t forget to LIKE this post, SHARE it with your friends, and FOLLOW us on X (TWITTER), FACEBOOK, THREADS, INSTAGRAM, and SUBSCRIBE to our YOUTUBE channel, as well.
And please, if you like what we do, consider helping us keep on entertaining you. You can use this handy link:
Or, you could check out the merch in Our Store:
Not only will you be helping us out if you pick up some merch, you get cool stuff to wear around (including the coveted WTFWT? logo!)
Leave a Reply