Halloween Horror Film ‘Late Night with the Devil’ Premieres to Raves
A new Halloween horror film has popped up on our radar, as Late Night with the Devil had its world premiere recently at SXSW, where initial reactions are positive and promising a unique experience.
Written and directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes, the film is set in 1977 and stars David Dastmalchian (Batman: The Long Halloween, The Suicide Squad) as syndicated late night talk show host Jack Delroy, who, under pressure from execs after the recent passing of is wife, is about to put on one hell of a Halloween episode. The name of the show is Night Owls, and guests on this Halloween special include psychics, skeptics, and parapsychologists, as viewers witness the chaos behind the scenes of the live production.
In their review out of SXSW, Bloody Disgusting says the film is both a “salute to late night television” and a “raucous horror ride,” further writing, “There’s so much happening, often at once, that it can be easy to miss key information. But the ingenuity, the painstaking period recreation, a riveting performance by Dastmalchian, and a showstopper of a finale make for one Halloween event you won’t want to miss.”
Deadline further calls the film, “a richly detailed ’70s meta-horror film,” and Dread Central says in their review, “The Cairnes brothers do an exceptional job of walking the line between straight horror and mockumentary, largely due to placing a fictional television event inside the real-world events of the 1970s. The analog quality and overall look of Late Night with the Devil are just convincing enough to seem real.”
Most recently, legendary author Stephen King tweeted about the film, proclaiming, “LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL: I got a screener. It’s absolutely brilliant. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Your results may vary, as they say, but I urge you to watch it when you can.”
A release date has not yet been announced, but stay tuned for more details to come.
You can see the first stills of Dastmalchian in Late Night with the Devil below.
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL: I got a screener. It's absolutely brilliant. I couldn't take my eyes off it. Your results may vary, as they say, but I urge you to watch it when you can.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) March 26, 2023
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