It’s always great to see a particular film genre go through a big evolution. I’m not a big fan of the found-footage genre, but with Late Night with the Devil, it is clear that the film moved the entire domain of this type of moving-making. The premise involves a double layer of found footage, seen in a special episode of a late-night talk show from the 1970s, where a single guest apparently managed to summon the devil.
The film, directed by Cameron and Colin Cairnes, uses the two-fold approach in a really novel, but narratively very suitable manner. The first layer is the 1970s color (and 4:3 format) show that was broadcast live decades earlier, while the second layer is a regularly framed but black and white behind-the-scenes footage. Both blend perfectly in a modest runtime of an hour and a half.
The last element of this extraordinary film is David Dastmalchian as Jack Delroy, the late-night show host who has fallen to his lowest point in both life and career. Dastmalchian is fantastic in presenting the multi-faceted Delroy, where many elements of personal motivation and drive, motivation, guilt, grief, and regret all mix with the insatiable need to be the number one in his field of business.
It’s a shame that the film generated an aura of controversy due to its incredibly minor and trivial use of AI-generated images for a couple of still shots. Beyond the issue of AI art use, Late Night with the Devil is a fantastic and innovative horror film that does for its genre what few have managed in many previous years.
