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Watched Late Night with the Devil. It was a very good premise, and David Dastmalchian does some great acting as our lead character, talk show host Jack Delroy. And it does an extraordinary job of capturing the feel of a 70s talk show, ala Johnny Carson. The sets, costumes, and overall feel is spot on throughout. The problem is that, for the most part, it just isn't very creepy for the first couple of acts. Every time I noticed something off-putting, they would then have a character verbally point it out and overly highlight it instead of simply letting it build. The movie could have used just a little more subtly to help transition from the corny atmosphere of the talk show to something more off-putting. Though, to the movie's credit, I did miss one clever detail in my initial viewing: the dead wife's reflection appearing throughout, even before the still frame the characters discover later on. Outside of Dastmalchian's performance, I found most of the character's portrayals to be fairly one dimensional, and at times annoying. The exception being Gus, the show's oft put-upon sidekick who grows increasingly worried about the occult forces they are meddling with, but outside of one stand out scene he simply doesn't get enough screen-time to shine. I was most annoyed by Carmichael, though mostly because it felt disrespectful to make an Amazing Randi homage that was so frustratingly unlikable. Lily, the host of the titular devil, was an oddly mixed bag. For most of her scenes she delivers a standard "creepy little girl" performance, but then seems to lock in during the first possession scene. Between the make up and her change in mannerisms, I was half convinced they had swapped her out for another actor. I'd believe you if you told me that's actually what they did, as I couldn't confirm one way or the other. In any case, it was effective. Yet, despite the performance, the scene hews so close to what you'd expect from a possession that it becomes predicable, and thus not all that scary. Much like Carmichael waiting to see something he can't cynically explain away, I'm waiting for the movie to actually get interesting. Well, by the third act, it finally finds it's footing. Or, more accurately, just before in the scene with Carmichael and Gus, where Carmichael demonstrates mass hypnosis as a possible explanation for the previous possession scene. He convinces Gus, the studio audience, and presumably the actual audience that Gus is full of worms, in a great piece of practical effects work. That said, despite being goopy and disturbing, the scene is both weirdly implausible given it's being orchestrated by the skeptic, and also oddly disconnected from the rest of the movie. Still, it's the kind of surreal horror I was wanting more of given the movie's premise. Thankfully, that's the direction the third act leans after the demon literally bursts lose, taking over the show after murdering most of the guests. Jack finds himself trapped in a twisted version of his past, the show mixing with his involvement with a shady, occult organization that helped his rise to stardom, and the apparent sacrifice of his sick wife. It's my favorite part, and I just wish we'd gotten a little more of it earlier on. But even here the movie is, sadly, predictable, given most of it had already been spelled out in the movie's overly long introduction exposition. Anyway, my nitpicking aside, it's still a fun, if not overly frightening movie, and worth a watch. Well, unless you're understandably giving it a pass for it's use of AI, which I can't fault. While most of the AI images are unobtrusive, I still think of that one skeleton's weird, spiked club hand. For the sake of the movie's legacy, I hope they release a version that replaces them with actual art. glitchwraith fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Mar 27, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 21:57
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 02:33 |
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TheMopeSquad posted:I was thinking that after her head explodes and she kills everyone that she would call Jack over and have an actual interview with the Devil. The ending we got was pretty good but stabbing the girl when he thought it was his wife was a little too predictable for me. I did figure out where that was going part way through the scene, though I'm confused why he ended up stabbing Lily, other than everyone else being dead or gone. Why would the demon manipulate Jack into destroying his only connection to our world? Unless the third act was actually a state of shock, and the only way Jack could carry through with what had to be done to defeat the demon. Or maybe he'll be the new host, if they try to get a sequel out of this.
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Mar 27, 2024 16:21
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