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Late Night with the Devil

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  • Late Night with the Devil

    Sorry if this has already been mentioned elsewhere, but it looks fantastic:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiwvEtimLzQ
    VHS will never die!

  • #2
    Looks good, when is it going to hit Shudder?

    Comment


    • #3
      I read online that it'll hit theaters March 22, then start streaming on Shudder April 19.
      VHS will never die!

      Comment


      • #4
        Just watched that trailer - agreed, this looks like a lot of fun.

        Inevitably puts me in mind of an American version of the BBC's 'Ghostwatch', but minus the documentary conceit (I'm assuming), plus the retro setting and (one assumes) a whole lot of gore/horror movie ramalama.

        Guess I'll be keeping that Shudder subscription going for another few months...
        https://breakfastintheruins.blogspot.com/
        http://stereosanctity.blogspot.com/

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        • #5
          Originally posted by BW Haggar View Post
          Inevitably puts me in mind of an American version of the BBC's 'Ghostwatch'...
          That's a great one.

          And a smattering of influence from WNUF HALLOWEEN SPECIAL.

          There's a second trailer out now, which I avoided as it appears to give too much away.
          VHS will never die!

          Comment


          • #6
            This is playing theatrically near me. Can't believe I get to see it on the big screen!
            Why would anybody watch a scum show like Videodrome? Why did you watch it, Max?

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            • #7
              I saw it yesterday afternoon — it’s reeeaallly good.

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              • #8
                Yeah, I really liked it as well.
                Why would anybody watch a scum show like Videodrome? Why did you watch it, Max?

                Comment


                • #9
                  * Anticipation builds! *
                  https://breakfastintheruins.blogspot.com/
                  http://stereosanctity.blogspot.com/

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL (2024) - Of all the competitors to Johnny Carson's talk show throne, none flamed out quite so ignominiously as Jack Delroy, who, on Halloween 1977, saw his career end. Delroy is, of course, a fictional character created by the Cairnes brothers, Colin and Cameron, who wrote and directed LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL. The Cairnes are Australian, but they have done their research and the movie feels authentic through and through.

                    Delroy (David Dastmalchian) is more based on Australian talk show host Don Lane than the likes of the actual Carson rivals such as Dick Cavett, David Frost, Alan Thicke, Pat Sajak etc. (Lane was, like Dastmalchian, an American). The Screenplay references many of the cultural aspects of the U.S. in the 70s such as cults, political corruption, secret societies, conspiracies, changing lifestyles and, here specifically - a growing interest in the occult. The gimmick is that the viewer is watching a long suppressed tape of the actual TV broadcast from 1977 (the commercial breaks are cleverly covered by a documentary film crew filming it all take place).

                    The “guests” on the episode include a psychic named Christou (Fayassal Bazi; a definite nod to Uri Geller) and a debunker Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss; clearly patterned on the famed skeptic Amazing Randi). The main guests are June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) - a paranormal researcher and her supposedly possessed patient.The conceit of presenting the program in 'real time' (after a short pseudo-documentary intro narrated by Michael Ironside) does risk boring some of the audience - as watching any random episode of a second rate talk show from nearly 50 years ago naturally would. Still, the writing is pretty strong exhibiting a dark wit, and the performances keep it moving well enough.

                    For the most part, the Cairnes brothers play fair with the viewer, adhering to proper aspect ratios and allowing the viewer to only see what one would have watching it on a 19” television back in the day (the behind the scenes doc is a, mostly acceptable, cheat). One has to accept that as things go so haywire that the network wouldn't have just cut away and stopped filming. As good as Dastmalchian's performance is, it doesn't quite ring true that of all of Carson's competitors, Delroy would be his most serious rival. He just doesn't have that kind of general appeal. The movie does go a bit off the rails towards the end, not so much from a story standpoint, but as too extreme a departure from the standard the brothers themselves have set as keeping it all from one POV (also, the big reveal isn't much of one, nor is it properly set up).

                    LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL is a solid feature. It ingeniously weaves in such reference points as ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE OMEN, THE EXORCIST (it's prime inspiration) and even a dash of Chayefsky's NETWORK. It makes for suitable late night horror film viewing itself.

                    Click image for larger version

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ID:	431552 LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL is currently streaming on Shudder and AMC+ and for streaming rental/purchase elsewhere.



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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by JoeS View Post
                      ...keeping it all from one POV
                      It's never really from one POV though, and this was my biggest problem with this movie: the narration tells us that what we're witnessing is from the master tape and behind the scenes footage (I may have missed the explanation for this - why were they recording backstage with multiple cameras?), which is a fair enough way for the filmmakers to give us more character interaction beyond the on-set interviews, yet throughout the film we're getting footage that doesn't fit the conceptual hook of this being a broadcast. Understandably, it would have been trickier to make this feel more authentic, but they went the easy route and gave us footage that was shot using multiple camera set-ups that are not within the realm of what the studio cameras would have caught - not just backstage but onstage as well. Even before it enters complete fantasy, we're seeing cutaways that wouldn't happen in a live broadcast. This is common on mockumentary shows like Modern Family, but this felt like too much of a cheat and could have been explained away with the narrator saying, "What you are about to see was edited together from multiple sources."

                      Also, and this is nitpicking, I know, but there wouldn't be a talk show that is broadcast live nightly at midnight. The logistics of that aren't feasible and it was something that was done in JOKER as well, just to allow what happens on the program to have an immediate impact. Did the filmmakers think that The Tonight Show was broadcast live? And even then, Night Owls wouldn't have necessarily been in direct competition with Carson because The Tonight Show aired at 11:30 Eastern Time.

                      Overall, this felt like a padded out segment from the new Creepshow series - pretty weak stuff, and that's not even getting into the use of dodgy CG FX.
                      Now everyone can have a complete KRULL lifestyle.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Toyboy View Post

                        It's never really from one POV though, and this was my biggest problem with this movie...
                        Once the set-up is executed, it's very consistent until the very end (my biggest quibble with the movie). The TV show is multi-cam as is the documentary. I'm a stickler, and I think it played fair once you accept the conceit.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          The one thing that bothered me has nothing to do with the actual film, but with the older films that it's being compared to. One title in particular that keeps coming up is a straight-up spoiler. I knew what the revelation at the end was going to be because of it.
                          Why would anybody watch a scum show like Videodrome? Why did you watch it, Max?

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by JoeS View Post

                            Once the set-up is executed, it's very consistent until the very end (my biggest quibble with the movie). The TV show is multi-cam as is the documentary. I'm a stickler, and I think it played fair once you accept the conceit.
                            Thinking about this some more, I realize I probably had too much of an expectation of a completely verisimilar experience. The things that I was noticing as being "false", though, were moments like Delroy revealing his wedding ring. When you watch a talk show there are often moments like that - a guest brings something out, like a photo maybe, and hands it to the host who then says, "Can we get a close-up on this?" at which point there's some awkwardness as the crew attempts to get a good shot of the thing as the host figures out which camera to aim it towards. In this movie the camera operator, without prior knowledge of this revelation, zooms in expertly onto the ring. This is obviously, deep, deep nitpicking, but it makes a difference. There are too many instances of the cameras capturing things that would require rehearsal. They're subtle but they could have been avoided if the Cairnes brothers had made more of an effort to treat the taping of the program as a real taping, as opposed to relying on cinematic techniques.

                            In terms of there being multiple cameras, I understand that being the case in the footage of the actual TV program, but there are moments backstage that were shot with three separate camera setups, when a single handheld would have been more likely. Those scenes were shot and edited like an episode of 30 Rock and didn't come off as documentarian filmmaking to me.

                            When you watch THIS IS SPINAL TAP, Rob Reiner did a brilliant job of filming everything as a genuine documentary crew would. When Christopher Guest began making his own mockumentires he'd often resort to using standard setups and partially scripted moments more so than letting things be captured as they would in a real documentary. In the case of LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL I would have been more impressed if they'd attempted to shoot it like a real televised show, as well as make the backstage moments be more improvised and documentary-like, but I understand the risk involved in doing that. Reiner shot dozens of hours of footage to get the 90 minutes we see in SPINAL TAP and for what I was expecting with LATE NIGHT they would have had to attempt to do a real time, single take production - obviously, with multiple cameras, but with more spontaneity - and there's absolutely no way anyone would attempt that.
                            Toyboy
                            like a hole in the head
                            Last edited by Toyboy; 04-26-2024, 11:36 AM.
                            Now everyone can have a complete KRULL lifestyle.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              I agree it isn't as pure as I would have liked it, etiher. But, within ITS CONSTRUCT, it plays fair. And, that's something that elevates it about the vast majority of 'found footage' films

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