Halloween Horror Film ‘Late Night with the Devil’ Set for 2024 Release
A new Halloween horror film popped up on our radar in 2023, as Late Night with the Devil drew rave reviews on its festival run, and the feature film has now been acquired by IFC and Shudder to be released in theaters in March 2024.
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.
IFC Films and Shudder have acquired the rights to Image Nation Abu Dhabi and Spooky Pictures’ Late Night With the Devil, covering North America, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, as reported by Variety in November.
In a statement, Dastmalchian said, “Playing Jack Delroy in Late Night With the Devil was a once-in-a-lifetime role that haunted me and changed the way I look at my work forever. IFC Films and Shudder are the perfect partners to bring this film to audiences. I’m so grateful to the Cairnes brothers for their craftsmanship and to all of the festival fans who have created an incredible rumble about Late Night With the Devil.”
In their review out of SXSW last year, 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.”
Late Night With The Devil will be released in theaters on March 22, 2024, and will then stream on Shudder at a later date.
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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