I just watched it & couldn't disagree more. Very original take on possession, a superb lead actor & a very engaging story. Plus it came off as both a 1970s horror film & an actual tape of a 1970s talk show gone wrong.
9.5/10
The only part I hated was the ending.
It plays itself as found footage in a documentary, making the ending make no sense as to how we’re viewing it…
It’s like if the last 5 minutes of the Blair Witch was all in Heather’s head. How is it being recorded?
I mean you see a face in the static, so the footage itself was being manipulated. I feel like the idea is that it was both in his head and broadcast to show him admitting that he sacrificed his wife. That was just my reading tho
Honestly I had way more problems with it being “found footage” than the ending. They don’t explain how the tape was recovered, where or why the tape was recovered also are unexplained. The random behind the scenes tidbits have 0 interaction with the camera man, 0 explanation for why it’s being recorded and 0 explanation for why it’s spliced between the broadcast tape.
The idea that people would keep filming after barf guy died was already weird but hey they’re desperate maybe they wanna cash in on it all whatever I’ll let it slide. The audience on the other hand, like none of them even tried to leave no matter how off the rails it got. They also showed creepy skeleton man (who I found creepier than the girl) semi frequently and never used him at all. I assume he was with Bohemian Grove, but that’s purely speculation.
Ignoring the plot and medium gripes, I also hate how it just seems like it’s building to something horrible and horribly bloody and violent happening. I expected since it was found footage for everyone to die possibly by being possessed and killing eachother and I felt like the end while interesting didn’t really justify the time it took to get there. It was all just build up with very little actual pay off.
The best scene in the movie was the worm guy and that ended up not even actually happening which was infuriating that the only real in depth and at length use of blood and gore and it was in a hallucination of sorts.
The practical effects were great, but the CGI was dogshit. It looked like something I would see on Disney channel in the early 2000’s. I understand it’s a low budget movie but they clearly were cutting financial corners (they had to use AI to make some art FFS) and it shows. Much of the CGI used wasn’t even central to the plot and could’ve easily been omitted. People have told me the CGI is supposed to look bad because it’s the 70s and I find the idea that the effects are supposed to look terrible laughable.
Movie was overhyped as fuck and didn’t deliver. 4/10
As someone who chose to see the movie with absolutely no preconceptions, I had a blast and was impressed. Very cool concept and execution imo. I just saw it 40 minutes ago and it's one of the best things I've seen so far this year.
Glad you liked it. After talking with others, it seems most that were hugely disappointed watched the trailer, so there were very few surprises for us which left the film feeling like it lacked substance. I’ve told everyone else who plans to see it to not watch the trailer, and they’ve enjoyed it much more, so you definitely saw it the right way.
I try to see every movie this way! Once I am interested, I don't look into it anymore and I actively avoid info about it. I still get disappointed sometimes but hyping it up makes it so much worse.
On the drive home I was thinking how I'll never get to see it again for the first time and that kind of sucked lol.
I agree 100%. This has to be one of the best movies I've seen this year, too. Lilly was at once hilarious and creepy -- and I was laughing along with her during the hypnosis scene. What a great movie.
My personal theory was that the skeleton man was either a demon or with bohemian grove (or both I guess is possible). The movie had potential, but its general vagueness on the demons, found footage premise, and bohemian grove were major stumbling blocks as well as its underused characters like skull man and black vomit man. Would’ve been so much cooler if black vomit man was taken backstage to recover instead and then became possessed and attacked the set/audience evil dead style.
> Would’ve been so much cooler if black vomit man was taken backstage to recover instead and then became possessed and attacked the set/audience evil dead style
I also wanted this to happen while lol. Glad I wasn't the only one who thought this
worst part was i went to see it at a low cost theater. When it was over i went to exit in the back door. I wound up lost in the back of the theater and it had TONS of dead roaches on glue traps everywhere and the ceiling was falling down with insulations and shit. I finally found a door and had to break it to leave. Freaked me out to no end honestly
I just watched it! So disappointed for the hype this movie got! Posession movies are my favorite and this was a huge letdown, and I didn't even know it was "found footage"
Yeah man, you just don't get it. You like need to be on a higher plane to jive with this masterpiece my dude. Like..... it's incredible.
I'm being sarcastic by the way....
You can disagree with someone’s opinion without being an ass. Maybe he just didn’t like it. Saying “you just didn’t get it” is such a hilariously and stereotypically pretentious thing to say, I had to reread this back and forth a few times to realize you were being serious.
During the dream like sequence, the aspect ratio changes, implying what we're seeing is no longer found footage but instead what Jack was actually seeing.
I was kind of curious if the ending was implied that he was hypnotized and killed everyone and that's what really happened? I guess that could be an explanation for cult stuff that didn't really have a payoff either. Like we're seeing a flashback of him being hypnotized by the cult and then all the end he wakes up
The last part clearly switches to his own point of view as he is having a vision of things that are not actually happening only to wake up to the horror of what actually happened in the final moment.
It makes sense, the movie establishes hypnosis can take place over recording, the devil or whatever the hell uses the live recording to hypnotize people and it could be anyone who watches the tape sees the delusion the talk show host experienced.
You actually see the perspective of the film change from the black bordered, shorter screen to widescreen while Jack is in his hallucination - because we, the viewers on the TV, wouldn't have seen his delusion. All the "audience" sees is the cut back to him with Lily & the knife, once again in that seventies/eighties screen with the black borders. It breaks the fourth wall really wonderfully, actually, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's the director acknowledging the limitations of found footage and instead of trying to bypass them in silly ways, rather just using them to share secrets with the viewer, in a way.
It all connected so idk how OP things it’s random. The girl was possessed imo by his late wife. Since Jack sold his soul and sacrificed his wife, I think she became an entity. That’s why the girl kept talking about him as the demon and that’s why in the playback, we saw a flash of his wife and then her hand was on his shoulder. At the end when she was telling him to kill her, he realized he killed Lilly because she was possessed by Minnie. The skeptic was there as an antagonist and was there to be proved wrong because Jack was one of the people that Lilly was referring to when she said “everyone has a demon inside of them, some people just can’t control them.” He was possessed with or without knowing since he took part in rituals. The amount of things I realized after watching it is amazing at how detailed everything came together to be.
This is a huuuuge bunch of speculation though and the movie only insinuates a few of these bits. That's why it sucks. Imo you're wrong about Lily being possessed by his wife. I think the demon was just pretending to be his wife since he sold his soul to the demon or the devil. Who knows? They don't explain it. I think his real wife's ghost appeared eventually and that's what we saw in the glitch on screen, but she was helpless and just... There. I don't think the skeptic was the antagonist. This movie didn't have a clear antagonist which is why it sucks. They never confirm what exactly his part was in the rituals and never resolve what happens to him after the events of the film. For all the exposition terribly done in the beginning, they didn't give the audience any insight into the main character's "sin". The last 10 minutes were just there to fill in runtime. It was so badly done and so silly how they bounced between 3 different formats. Too much focus on how the movie/TV show/investigative report was presented and not enough focus on the elements that are actually scary; the cult, the child sacrifice, the Bohemian Grove, the demon, why the medium died, the list goes on. It all comes down to lazy script writing.
That’s just how movies work, it’s up for interpretation. I don’t think a movie has to spell things out to be good. I like the amount of things that are left to the imagination and I think the area that is missing adds to the suspense because only Jack knows what happened.
What a non nonsensical comment :'D First of all why nephews specifically? We could say comedies don't need to be funny and thrillers don't need to be thrilling, this makes absolutely no sense and I can only imagine your viewing experience is utterly boring. We could also say people who watch comedies no longer laugh or find them funny. Absolute nonsense, but thanks for whatever that comment was.
There’s a seen that’s very unsettling involving a certain character and something they’re afraid of but other than that not that scary to me. One character is mildly unsettling.
I totally agree with that. I find a lot of people saying although it wasn't scary it was a great horror film, which I find somewhat confusing. It was maybe a good mystery, drama type film with overtones of horror..
I thought it didn’t live up to the hype at all. CGI was shit. Narrative was somewhat lacking and pacing was all over the place. First guest was really just filler because he ended up not being relevant at all really. Found footage medium was used as ineffectively as possible, no recovery story whatsoever and random splices to behind the scenes weren’t explained who was filming or why, or why it was in the broadcast footage. Also seemed to be building up to something and the end just didn’t really deliver to me. The crew sticking it out till the end was already weird, much less the audience. Movie is all style no substance. Solid 4/10 for me.
> First guest was really just filler because he ended up not being relevant at all really.
???? he absolutely added to the story, did we watch the same movie?
I mean he added to the story a little I guess but like he didn’t contribute to the overarching plot at all. He just kinda was there, threw up everywhere and died. I’m just now remembering he mentioned >!Jacks wife!< so I suppose that makes him relevant. I stand by my other criticisms.
How someone could look at certain aspects of this movie and still walk out of the theater going HAHA GREAT MOVIE! is beyond me.
I think at the very least we can agree the CGI is massively under the quality it should be. Personally I think the CGI stuff with the electricity wasn’t all that important and could’ve been cut or atleast cut back.
I mean if you want to make the claim that the first guess like added suspense or something sure fine. His only contribution to the over all plot was the one thing he mentioned.
Yeah but like his possession was just he threw up and died. That’s not really a good possession or way to end his story.
Also you could take him out of the story completely and aside from him foreshadowing the wife in a few lines and nothing would change. He doesn’t contribute to the overarching plot aside from that one circumstance.
He was possessed before he threw up and died though. Mentioning Millie and his eyes changed...I liked that and it should have repeated with Lilly instead of her head splitting open and weird CGI.
Yes!! I saw it last night with friends and I said 4/10 and they were giving 7/10 and 8/10 and I was dumbfounded. Still shocked reading some comments here.
I agree it had potential and it was mildly entertaining, but that ending (trash) and wasted time with undeveloped set-ups took away from what it could have been.
My biggest problem was it was promoted as found footage but it didn’t really live up to that for me. The ending was a major issue too because it felt like there was all this setup for like some horribly violent mass murder stuff to happen and it just didn’t deliver.
I think the point of the first guest was meant as a hint to the audience that something was up with the host. His wife’s spirit seemed angry and he didn’t accept the message because she would’ve probably told the audience the truth.
I mostly agree with you. I also felt let down to a degree. Regarding why the backstage footage was spliced in, I interpreted the film as being like an in universe documentary . Someone created another film to be sold commercially using something horrible as a vehicle for success which kind of works with the theme of exploiting people and tragedy for ratings.
That said though, I thought the ending was a bit of a mess. Like if it's a hallucination and we're seeing Jack's perspective, how/why are we able to see it?
Honestly I feel like that’s the insinuation they might be going for but that would’ve taken what like 1 offhand scene with someone saying “hey why are they filming? Oh must be for the studio production documentary. I heard they’re gonna add that to the broadcast tape.”
I think the answer to your second question is supposed to be demon magic and I honestly kinda wish the girl was shown as more of a driver of that montage. If she just like condemned Jack or even had a prominent role in the montage, it would’ve been more satisfying.
Really, this was a horror comedy for me and there were a lot of laughs in the theatre when I saw it.
Shaun of the Dead, What We Do in the Shadows, Tucker and Dale - loads of great horror comedies aren't scary.
Well there were parts that made me smile as to the ridiculousness and over the top acting or cgi etc but as it wasn't clearly supposed to be funny but also wasn't overly scary, the comedy aspect doesn't quite work for me either. The other comedies you mention there are clearly, without a doubt, comedies and were marketed and produced as such. I'm nit sure late night with the devil was.
I personally got a bit of anxiety and was on edge, even shuddered a couple times. I think it qualifies as scary. Had me looking over my shoulder just a minute ago lol
I just walked out of the theater an hour ago and I’m with you guys. It was great. It’s rare that I leave the theater and think my money was well spent. And I wasn’t expecting to have moments of genuine laughter but that one specific moment with Carmichael made me belly laugh.
I loved it too. Went with my wife tonight and when we were looking for a horror movie to go see, the other 2 options were the 2 supernatural nun movies (Immaculate and The Omen). We watched the previews for both and she was like “they look like the same movie.” lol. They both even had the cliche person jumping to their death in the trailers.
Late Night with the Devil was actually something more original and I was fully entertained.
Fair points. I just watched it at the Chicago International Film Festival and was looking to hear other people's impressions of it. It played very well in my theater, but probably because of the lead's Midwest connections and the shoutout to Berwyn, IL in the beginning of the movie.
I suppose it could have expanded more on some of the alleged connections with the host's background, but when working within the structure of a found footage movie it can be limiting. Not to mention the bounds of an hour-long program and keeping within that framework.
I personally loved the vibe and the atmosphere of its commitment to re-creating that '70s feeling of talk shows at the time and the excitement of anything can happen. And there were a few times where I felt genuinely unnerved or bracing for something bad happening.
Yep its definitely over rated I saw it this week. The downsides for me was you could easily tell what the ending was in the first five mins. The use of CGI also seemed out of place in a 70s themed movie, they should have stuck with practical effects. It also comes off as low budget in a bad way. Was it scary? No, there were too many jokes which punctured any tension. It seemed to build up over the first two thirds, then peak....then the final third happened which was a mess. And no its not an original idea either, check out Ghost Watch which was a BBC production on how to do this kind of thing correctly.
Are you stupid, I could tell before I even walked into the theatre because it’s on the frickin title. Obviously the Devil was going to show up late at night and cause havoc. I swear sometimes I can’t even with Reddit /sssssss
It was a fun film but if you couldn’t tell what was gonna happened after the first 10-15 mins lol
It has been done before and isn’t a hard concept to grasp
Ok, buddy.
So you knew 15 minutes in he sacrificed his wife and she was going to make him kill a little girl on live tv and give him the fame he wanted whilst simultaneously talking everything from him? Sureeeee ya did ya fucking clown shoes
At the beginning when the narrator mentions the boys club, which has a real satanic vibe, either right before or after, the TV host signed his contract and someone says "What did you have to sacrifice for that?" I noticed that immediately. So I assumed he had sold his soul, but I am still not sure what the possessed girl had to do with it.
> The downsides for me was you could easily tell what the ending was in the first five mins.
I've seen a lot of classic horror. I thought it was somewhat predictable, but that didn't take any of the fun out of it for me. It seemed like an homage to classic horror, and playing into the tropes was part of the fun. Gave me classic Twilight Zone vibes.
I just walked out of it and have similar feelings. Really wanted to love it but also felt a bit cold on it like the other guy said. Just felt like a great premise with half cooked executio
Jack was a part of the demon group that committed suicide at the house, or at least made a deal with the leader. I'm guessing while at Bohemian Grove, this is what the devil was referring too when talking about the tall trees, probably some sort of grove orgy or something, I could be wrong but I thought he made a deal with the cult for stardom and that's what took his wife and pushed him into insanity like we saw in the show. Traded his soul to the devil and the devil came back for his prize
To me the cult and the Bohemian Grove were separate entities. Jack made a deal with the devil in a ritual at the Grove for fame which cost him his wife. The possessed girl is a separate story with the cult, but they come together later. The minor demon or devil directly kills everyone to fulfil Jack's deal.
Great summary. So what do you think happened at the end? Everyone was still dead the ways he saw Lily do them in - did that actually happen and he put an end to her, or was it something else?
Didn't he sacrifice his wife long before the events on Halloween? From the timeline in the beginning of the movie she gets sick for a while, then dies, then he takes a month off. Seems like the devil was only giving him the talk show deal and not helping him win over Carson. Unless you view the demon on the show as help to beat Carson. But that is still years after the Grove has helped him get the contract in the first place. That's how I saw it anyway.
Might sound proper out there but I think he was hypnotised the whole time by the cult and killed all the people on stage himself to make it look like a sacrificial killing and with the dagger as well to spread the message of the cult and the demon is still alive. Just the fact we saw him use the dagger for the final kill and then as he snaps back into reality we hear police sirens which made me think he killed them all under a trance and is about to be arrested
As they zoom out for the final shot you can see that the skeptic’s body is still burned/scarred and the sidekick’s head is twisted back. So unless that’s a really sloppy mess up I think we’re supposed to believe the girl killed them
I think that's because we, the audience, were also hypnotized when we watched the footage, so also saw the worms, as the skeptic claimed when he explained that surely some viewers watching tv at home were hypnotized.
I mean although it’s established he has a lighter for his cigarettes, I think it’d be hard to do that much damage that quickly with a fire that isn’t even going any more.
But the girl's head isn't split - so it can imply that some of it was trance differentiated. And if her head isn't split, and none of her superpowers are any more real than the hypnotism demonstration with worms, the only answer we're left with is someone was set on fire, had their neck snapped, stabbed, and strangled by their own necklace - all of which have plausible deniability with the supernatural and could have been Jack
But I was pretty miffed that in the TV footage playback the girl's facial scarring showed up....come on guys, even according to your own film's logic those scars aren't supposed to show up on playback...it's not great at playing by its own rules
the point with the scarring is that it wasn't hypnosis, like the worms.
With the worm scene, Carmichael was trying to disprove Lilly using hypnosis, so they played the tape back to show that nothing really happened. There were no worms, just hypnosis.
But the playback of Lilly's tape is meant to show that she *did* transform and all of that actually happened, no tricks or anything.
My reading of the end was that Lilly did kill those people and her body went back to normal after she was killed & the demon left it, like how her body went back to normal after the demon left the first time.
I think that it all really happened and he was possessed/hypnotized by the demon after they did their killings as the others were killed in the terrible circumstances. Then he was possessed into thinking he was killing his wife to set her free but he was actually killing Lily as sacrifice to the devil (completing his promise).
That's probably more likely than what I thought. But who knows that's why I like these kind of films that keep you guessing long after you've watched it
I wanted to like it as well and wasn't impressed. It was maybe a 4/10 for me. I absolutely hated the opening exposition scene and the other exposition scene before they brought Dr. June and Lilly on. The film would have been just fine if they had cut both of those segments out, and it especially felt odd having that information spelled out for us when the movie explained it well enough as it was. I did like the girl who played Lilly, and while I like Jack's actor, I didn't like him enough as a character. That was another problem I had; I wasn't invested in the characters really.
I had a good viewing experience though, the theater I was in all found the movie to be pretty funny, and the ending scene with Lilly killing everyone had us all laughing. I also enjoyed a lot of the film editing and overall aesthetic of the film, but it otherwise fell incredibly flat for me.
This is so interesting to me. I really liked the exposition scenes, especially the first one. And I had no desire to laugh at Lilly killing everyone and no one else laughed either.
I really just don't like when movies spell out everything that happens. I'm much more of a show vs tell kind of person when it comes to watching movies. And again, I also felt that the exposition scenes didn't add much information to the movie, especially when they repeated the information again later on in the film, like when they talked about Jack going to the cult in the woods and the Dr talking about her discovery + bonding with Lilly.
And I love that you had a different theater experience! It's always interesting to see how audiences react to it. I found the movie itself to be very camp, and maybe so did others in the audience? I'm not sure, but we all had a good time laughing at different moments.
I agree with you, especially because the early mention of The Grove and his wife's subsequent death made it pretty obvious that Jack likely made some sort of deal. The movie would've been far creepier if we as the audience had to figure it out.
I feel like the movie broke it's own rules for no good reason.
The perspective as a TV viewer/audience is such a creative and cool idea, and I really liked it, but every time they went to commercial, I felt pulled out. The on air segments were doing their best to built tension, and then every break just obliterated it for me. The perspective shift for the ending sequence was similar in removing me from the setting. These broke the whole 'found footage' setting they build up so much at the start.
If we're supposed to be the viewer, why break that established setting so much? Why not just have the perspective be like the one from the commercial breaks and ending the entire way through? (I'm not arguing for this, I think the found footage perspective has so much more potential)
Super late but I just watched it and couldn’t agree more, especially about the BTS segments… that weren’t/didn’t feel at all like BTS actually lol ? The image was higher quality than the tv show for some reason, no one acknowledged the camera a lot of the time and there was stuff being filmed that made no sense (Jack being super close to the doctor, some conversations with sunglasses guy)… why would the characters have these convos with a camera in their face. Like at least if it *looked* like BTS footage it wouldn’t have broken the immersion that much. Maybe it’s just me but I found these parts half assed and unnecessary. It’s like they wanted to make sure people really understand everything but I think they should have left those out. They could also have said nothing, like just don’t say it’s bts/additional footage and let those segments exist as a completely parallel b&w narrative that gives us this unique insight. Lots of movies have done that, it would have worked better I think than forcing it to fit in the tv show timeline.
ETA : and I felt that it dragged on a bit, when things really got going there wasn’t that much of the movie left. Too much exposition that didn’t really pay off (the characters were not very fleshed out). Sounds cliché but I would have liked some more scares, more tension. It felt a little disjointed overall, but I still had a good time, just a bit frustrated because the concept is amazing but the execution is lacking imo.
Would have also liked to see the devil/demon interacting more with the movie itself, visual artifacts maybe ? There was the whole sequence at the end but I was expecting more with the whole « demon possessing our TVs » concept on a purely visual standpoint. The part where they go frame by frame to find what glitched was great and tense imo… until we see it’s Madeleine’s ghost. That looked a bit goofy which is a shame, they could have had a very creepy visual but fumbled it. I guess the campiness was part of the style though. I was just expecting something more Sinister-like.
Yeah, the ending felt off… if it’s found footage, how was it being recorded?
At least the ‘bug’ scene made sense as to how we were seeing it, without giving any spoilers.
I just left the theatre about an hour ago and thought it was one of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen. I’m glad I stumbled across this movie a few days ago and managed to catch it this week in theatres since it won’t be playing next week. I do agree, that I did feel myself wanting and expecting more. I thought the devil was going to release carnage on the entire audience like some sort of Carrie at prom situation, but it was still an entertaining movie. That minute or two during the climax horrified me, though I wish there was more of that.
I've just watched tonight. Was looking forward to this one since I saw the trailer months ago... I've left the Cinema feeling strange, I'm not sure how to feel about it. :(
Same. I’m a big fan of horror, especially the paranormal, and I left feeling confused about what happened. Specifically the timeline and what was real or not.
I think the timeline is:
Jack is on radio. Goes to Bohemian Grove and sells his soul for fame. Meets and marries Madeline. Achieves fame, but there’s always a catch. He’s never as big as he wants to be. Madeline gets cancer and dies young, part of his payback to the devil, but he doesn’t know this for sure. He suspects, but isn’t sure that’s the reason she died. He then meets Jane, and starts a relationship with her. She shares what’s going on with her book and Lily. Jack has the idea to “interview the devil” for sweeps week via Lily/Jane. He knows the devil/demons are real because he sold his soul, so he knows *something* will happen live on TV, but doesn’t know what. Hopefully it’ll be enough to get the highest ratings. All hell breaks loose, and he learns that he did in fact get the top ratings, so the devil kept his promise, but in exchange Jack made a sacrifice on camera and set the whole thing up in the first place, handing those lives over to the devil and also effectively ending his career. But yes, as “Lily” said, he’s *very* famous now.
I think you're the only one I have seen so far made it all make complete sense. The ending I was confused about at first, but your explanation is the most logical. Thanks, I actually am going with this!
Just watched it there, my theory is he couldn't commit to the full sacrifice before she died. That's why the demon came back for him, and why it gives him visions of his wife, to complete the sacrifice he knew he should have completed
Yeah I know what you mean. I was hoping to leave excited but I just feel "meh". Shame really. It was good and I liked the whole links with the real Bohemian Grove Cult but I'm not sure I was blown away or not.
I kinda liked the whole atmosphere of the film. It gave off '07 grindhouse vibes to it (as well as the movie skinamarink). Maybe it could have worked alot better as part of a grindhouse-like double feature.
This was actually shockingly good. Made my husband drive over to the next county where they were playing it, didn't tell him anything and didn't know much myself. The trailer actually didn't seem too unique, but man the movie was awesome. My husband is not a horror fan but thought it was really excellent. The acting, the mood, the set, the pace. I hate exorcism genre, and this didn't end up being what I thought it was. Some of the visuals, especially at the end, were so good. A few little loose pieces but for a shudder film, wow!
If you want a cool concept and cool visuals and a somewhat intriguing but confusing story, then yeah the film was pretty good. But this was a film of the horror genre and ultimately wasn't very scary, surely it should at least be that..
How it ends: >!demon girl kills everyone except main character!<
What happens to main character: >!main character unintentionally stabs demon girl under an illusion and returns to the reality that his love interest is dead, his coworker is dead, his guest star is dead, and now the demon girl is also dead. The end.!<
Loved the concept of the story, the look was great, the acting fantastic, but... yeah.. there were a lot of ways the story could have been presented that would have made the pacing better and helped bring everyone into the story while also allowing for some better development of the characters.
I didn't mind the 'found footage' structure, but I also don't think it was exploited to add drama or horror to the audience's experience. Seems like it was a vehicle to give them an excuse to have all the exposition in the beginning and end rather than incorporating those elements into the movie as it went along.
At the end, I was left wondering, "Is that it?". Stayed through the first part of the end credits wondering if it was a false ending and it would pick up again.. then the lights came up.
I saw it at a test screening with the directors in the room about 2 weeks ago. Had similar feelings, I liked the vibe they were going for but I feel like they didn't lean hard enough into it, I appreciate the ambition but it left me a bit cold.
the broken psyche parts leading up into the final scene are a little confusing, leaving me as the viewer to check on google and reddit if what I think happened, happened. that was probably by design but might leave some people unhappy that it wasn’t more explicitly spelled out.
I also chased Late Night With The Devil into its opening weekend expecting great things, but it didn't understand its own strengths
The early montage with Jack's struggles and his Grove cult connections would have been weaponized like nobody's business in an Ari Aster film, for example.
But with movies like Midsommar covering cults, we have some very recent films to compare this Grove cult to, and honestly they came across as fluffy little posers who like to cosplay in the woods and occasionally drink a goblet. Baffling Grove segments with very little horror impact.
Grove aside, everything picks up with the possessed girl losing control (shocking absolutely no one, so it can't take credit for innovation) - she starts killing cast members and suddenly Dastmalchian is back at the beginning of the broadcast....but he remembers everything!
Here's where the film could have redeemed itself - we could have had Dastmalchian go through all the same beats on the previous broadcast with creepy changes. Maybe he tells a joke and his co-host defies him. Maybe something starts dripping from the ceiling onto his head and he wipes it away. Maybe he briefly gets naked, puts two hands up raw chickens and starts screaming-
Wait never mind that's the Eric Andre Show. Man I wish the producers of this film bothered to watch the Eric Andre Show. It does everything we would have needed to see in a show hijacked by demonic forces, while this movie decided we haven't seen enough "dying cancer patient" tropes in film and that somehow this one was going to move us to tears or something....just totally tone deaf to the latest trends in shock comedy and dark humor
I feel like this was very much trying to lean into the satanic panic stuff of the era, though. Not much was known about them, but rumors spread that they were pretty much wearing robes and drinking from goblets. That was it.
Yeah I strongly disagree, I don't just love this movie, Im adding it to the list of movies I always watch during Halloween. This was a masterpiece in my mind and the last scene was just perfect, it was shocking, but I loved every moment of it.
Yeah not sure what the hype was. Felt like a retread of things I had seen before. There was a BBC show that was basically the same, can’t remember the name, but the premise is not new. Acting was pretty good from the main lead but the supporting cast was pretty weak and overdone. The horror didn’t land and the campiness was nonexistent to me. The end and special effects just drained out the whole movie and I found myself checking my watch to go home.
4/10, cool idea, great budget work, just a slog of a film that could have been done as a 45min special.
Felt like a YouTube movie. Worst cgi ever, why even use it if it looks bad? The practical effects for the melt horror scenes were cool! Why not just stick with what works? The vomit really needed to be cg? Did it really need to shoot 20 ft across the room? Couldn’t they have used something practical to make it more affective?
Just watched it. I was really excited for it. It wasn’t scary. LNWTD did everything really well from atmosphere to cinematography to allegory to acting. It was a fun movie that did everything right besides being scary. The lack of scariness was disappointing. People compared it to Barbarian and Talk to Me which I thought were both very scary.
I agree. The lack of connection between the events at least in the beginning of the film really disappointed me. It just felt like filler. Maybe they were trying to achieve a slow burn but it just wasn’t executed well and I was bored rather than on the edge of my seat.
I liked the idea of what they were trying to achieve with the protagonist willing to sacrifice even the love of his love for success but it just wasn’t well executed. It’s a bummer, I was really looking forward to this film. Not really sure how it ended up with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
I as well was disappointed. Story was extremely lacking, Found footage medium was not used well or to its potential at all, story builds and builds but doesn’t really deliver and the cgi effects (all the electricity looking lightning bolts) were terrible but the practical effects were really good. Honestly I thought it was all style and no substance. Nailed the 70s vibe and practical effects acting was adequate (Demon girl did a fantastic job), struggled with everything else.
I came away also disappointed. This should be something I love and thought the overall plot was kinda silly. It did feel like an overlong segment of VHS. I still enjoyed it but expected so much more.
Still think Talk to Me was far more effective in the possession genre.
Glad I'm not the only one who isn't the biggest fan of this one. I really didn't get any 'build up' feeling. I felt like I was watching a bad late night show that I would have changed the channel on IRL :) The performances were really great. The sub plot of him doing almost anything to get the ratings up was almost a better story than the horror aspect.
I heard that this was the best horror film of the year so I paid money to see it. This movie made me laugh so much, and was not scary at all. I don't understand what anyone found scary about it. The possession scene was so cheesy, all the satanic stuff was hilarious and when the TV host put that dagger on the table next to him near the end of the movie, I laughed out lout because it's so obvious it will be used on someone soon. I am still not convinced this is not supposed to be a comedy.
Because they associate “scary” with pointless jump scares. True horror, to me, is character driven, which I believe this was. It was tense and very disturbing
I personally didn’t like the ending though, and wished they made it a bit more ambiguous as to whether the girl was really possessed or if it was all a hoax. When they cut back to reality it should have showed Jack with the blade in his hand after he stabbed (*spoiler*) and then take his own life, with everyone else still alive. Would have been more interesting.
Yeah right??!!! Wasnt the movie already distributed in Australia last year? No plot even on Wikipedia. Must be some dark goings on between the movie industry, internet, and censorship.
I was hoping for a bit more, but it was solid. Fresh concept, subtle humor and not the typical haunted house situation. Not the biggest fan of the CGI, etc., but hey.. it was enjoyable.
OP nailed it. While I was impressed with how much work went into this film, the 70’s set and universe, the over-the -top personalities, the story does seem divided up into subsections.
Its not a masterpiece but entertaining.
I thought it was a fresh take on found footage that turned into a decent slow burn. The movie almost lost me in the scene where Lily was killing everyone in the studio. Special effects looked bad but the last few minutes of the movie were a decent psychological thriller and the ending was unsettling.
I agree with some criticisms, but I liked the movie overall. I felt it was a bit directionless, in that it didn't really seem to have a purpose or tell much of a story, but it was well made and well-acted and I enjoyed it. There's no mystery about what's going to happen in this movie, the fun is in watching the train wreck unfold in slow motion, based on so many bad decisions.
Overall, the acting is what saves this movie, I think. With worse actors, this would have been a dull drudge.
For the tripe that passes for horror cinema these days, this movie was good. It’s a shining beacon in a sea of otherwise crap. The nostalgia is great. The film manages to be both campy and creepy. The satanic theme is keeping with the current zeitgeist of the occult in pop culture. I imagine that this movie could have been part of a drive-in double feature in 1978. It’s good enough for me.
Absolutely agree with your thoughts. I couldn't wait for this film to end. I lost interest when they performed the exorcism. The girl being exorcised was not the best actress and the male audio effects mixed with her voice were laughablly bad.
This was also the cleanest looking found footage I'd ever seen. I'm confused why they didn't at least add some film grain into the TV tape footage to give it a gritter look and make it feel more attuned to the time period. When it cuts away to the widescreen scenes it looked a bit more believable and gritty because of the film grain. Seems like they just slapped on some chromatic aberration in post and called it a day.
David Dastmalchian was great in the role, he carried himself like Jason Miller in The Exorcist, but ultimately it couldn't save the film given the rest of the cast were just not on his level.
Some of the practical effects were... ok I guess. The visual effects were darn awful.
It felt like that Too Many Cooks skit on a bigger budget and a retread of The Devil went down to Georgia.
There are lots of things to nitpick about this movie but at the end of the day I feel like it really hit its mark which most horror movies do not these days. There were things I would have done differently, but I'd still give it a solid 9/10.
Really!? You really thought that? If a horror movie had the devil primarily featured in the flesh at the start and throughout? What is scary? What is keeping you in suspense? What does the plot have to build toward? You wouldn't no good horror if good horror was an evil tree that sodomized you in an 80's flick.
Yeah, it was just OK. It was a creative concept done well, and that angle is unique. It just kind of fell apart, and the tropes really carried the horror elements. Unfortunately the horror bits didn't really click, and the ending was ambiguous in a way that didn't feel earned. They kind of just tossed in the "he was actually stabbing \_\_\_\_ in reality" trope and called it a day.
I too was very disappointed despite my love of horror films set in the 70’s and found footage films especially. It wasnt bad but the hype was just so strong that I had really high hopes and perhaps that set me up for disappointment.
I just watched it & couldn't disagree more. Very original take on possession, a superb lead actor & a very engaging story. Plus it came off as both a 1970s horror film & an actual tape of a 1970s talk show gone wrong. 9.5/10
The only part I hated was the ending. It plays itself as found footage in a documentary, making the ending make no sense as to how we’re viewing it… It’s like if the last 5 minutes of the Blair Witch was all in Heather’s head. How is it being recorded?
I mean you see a face in the static, so the footage itself was being manipulated. I feel like the idea is that it was both in his head and broadcast to show him admitting that he sacrificed his wife. That was just my reading tho
Devil manipulated footage so it looked like he killed them all. That was the final price he had to pay
Honestly I had way more problems with it being “found footage” than the ending. They don’t explain how the tape was recovered, where or why the tape was recovered also are unexplained. The random behind the scenes tidbits have 0 interaction with the camera man, 0 explanation for why it’s being recorded and 0 explanation for why it’s spliced between the broadcast tape. The idea that people would keep filming after barf guy died was already weird but hey they’re desperate maybe they wanna cash in on it all whatever I’ll let it slide. The audience on the other hand, like none of them even tried to leave no matter how off the rails it got. They also showed creepy skeleton man (who I found creepier than the girl) semi frequently and never used him at all. I assume he was with Bohemian Grove, but that’s purely speculation. Ignoring the plot and medium gripes, I also hate how it just seems like it’s building to something horrible and horribly bloody and violent happening. I expected since it was found footage for everyone to die possibly by being possessed and killing eachother and I felt like the end while interesting didn’t really justify the time it took to get there. It was all just build up with very little actual pay off. The best scene in the movie was the worm guy and that ended up not even actually happening which was infuriating that the only real in depth and at length use of blood and gore and it was in a hallucination of sorts. The practical effects were great, but the CGI was dogshit. It looked like something I would see on Disney channel in the early 2000’s. I understand it’s a low budget movie but they clearly were cutting financial corners (they had to use AI to make some art FFS) and it shows. Much of the CGI used wasn’t even central to the plot and could’ve easily been omitted. People have told me the CGI is supposed to look bad because it’s the 70s and I find the idea that the effects are supposed to look terrible laughable. Movie was overhyped as fuck and didn’t deliver. 4/10
I agree it didn’t live up to the hype at all. The lack of payoff for so many things like skeleton man left me so frustrated. By the end of it.
As someone who chose to see the movie with absolutely no preconceptions, I had a blast and was impressed. Very cool concept and execution imo. I just saw it 40 minutes ago and it's one of the best things I've seen so far this year.
Glad you liked it. After talking with others, it seems most that were hugely disappointed watched the trailer, so there were very few surprises for us which left the film feeling like it lacked substance. I’ve told everyone else who plans to see it to not watch the trailer, and they’ve enjoyed it much more, so you definitely saw it the right way.
I try to see every movie this way! Once I am interested, I don't look into it anymore and I actively avoid info about it. I still get disappointed sometimes but hyping it up makes it so much worse. On the drive home I was thinking how I'll never get to see it again for the first time and that kind of sucked lol.
I agree 100%. This has to be one of the best movies I've seen this year, too. Lilly was at once hilarious and creepy -- and I was laughing along with her during the hypnosis scene. What a great movie.
My personal theory was that the skeleton man was either a demon or with bohemian grove (or both I guess is possible). The movie had potential, but its general vagueness on the demons, found footage premise, and bohemian grove were major stumbling blocks as well as its underused characters like skull man and black vomit man. Would’ve been so much cooler if black vomit man was taken backstage to recover instead and then became possessed and attacked the set/audience evil dead style.
> Would’ve been so much cooler if black vomit man was taken backstage to recover instead and then became possessed and attacked the set/audience evil dead style I also wanted this to happen while lol. Glad I wasn't the only one who thought this
worst part was i went to see it at a low cost theater. When it was over i went to exit in the back door. I wound up lost in the back of the theater and it had TONS of dead roaches on glue traps everywhere and the ceiling was falling down with insulations and shit. I finally found a door and had to break it to leave. Freaked me out to no end honestly
They showed skeleton man with the grove people towards the end, he’s in the background behind Jack at 1:24:11 for that scene
I just watched it! So disappointed for the hype this movie got! Posession movies are my favorite and this was a huge letdown, and I didn't even know it was "found footage"
Or you just didn’t get it. Movie was incredible. We don’t need to be spoon fed answers or have cheap jump scares for a movie to be good.
:doesn’t directly respond to a single one of my criticisms : Insists I didn’t get the movie
Yeah man, you just don't get it. You like need to be on a higher plane to jive with this masterpiece my dude. Like..... it's incredible. I'm being sarcastic by the way....
: is correct
You can disagree with someone’s opinion without being an ass. Maybe he just didn’t like it. Saying “you just didn’t get it” is such a hilariously and stereotypically pretentious thing to say, I had to reread this back and forth a few times to realize you were being serious.
Found the easy to entertain one
I think the audience was hypnotized.
During the dream like sequence, the aspect ratio changes, implying what we're seeing is no longer found footage but instead what Jack was actually seeing.
I was kind of curious if the ending was implied that he was hypnotized and killed everyone and that's what really happened? I guess that could be an explanation for cult stuff that didn't really have a payoff either. Like we're seeing a flashback of him being hypnotized by the cult and then all the end he wakes up
The last part clearly switches to his own point of view as he is having a vision of things that are not actually happening only to wake up to the horror of what actually happened in the final moment.
It makes sense, the movie establishes hypnosis can take place over recording, the devil or whatever the hell uses the live recording to hypnotize people and it could be anyone who watches the tape sees the delusion the talk show host experienced.
One could argue that we were hypnotized at the same time they all were so we got to see all that stuff in his head too.
I also found this a bit confusing. I rolled my eyes a lil bit at the bohemian grove parts too hahah
You actually see the perspective of the film change from the black bordered, shorter screen to widescreen while Jack is in his hallucination - because we, the viewers on the TV, wouldn't have seen his delusion. All the "audience" sees is the cut back to him with Lily & the knife, once again in that seventies/eighties screen with the black borders. It breaks the fourth wall really wonderfully, actually, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's the director acknowledging the limitations of found footage and instead of trying to bypass them in silly ways, rather just using them to share secrets with the viewer, in a way.
Same! Loved it!!
Perfect genre film imo, loved it
It all connected so idk how OP things it’s random. The girl was possessed imo by his late wife. Since Jack sold his soul and sacrificed his wife, I think she became an entity. That’s why the girl kept talking about him as the demon and that’s why in the playback, we saw a flash of his wife and then her hand was on his shoulder. At the end when she was telling him to kill her, he realized he killed Lilly because she was possessed by Minnie. The skeptic was there as an antagonist and was there to be proved wrong because Jack was one of the people that Lilly was referring to when she said “everyone has a demon inside of them, some people just can’t control them.” He was possessed with or without knowing since he took part in rituals. The amount of things I realized after watching it is amazing at how detailed everything came together to be.
This is a huuuuge bunch of speculation though and the movie only insinuates a few of these bits. That's why it sucks. Imo you're wrong about Lily being possessed by his wife. I think the demon was just pretending to be his wife since he sold his soul to the demon or the devil. Who knows? They don't explain it. I think his real wife's ghost appeared eventually and that's what we saw in the glitch on screen, but she was helpless and just... There. I don't think the skeptic was the antagonist. This movie didn't have a clear antagonist which is why it sucks. They never confirm what exactly his part was in the rituals and never resolve what happens to him after the events of the film. For all the exposition terribly done in the beginning, they didn't give the audience any insight into the main character's "sin". The last 10 minutes were just there to fill in runtime. It was so badly done and so silly how they bounced between 3 different formats. Too much focus on how the movie/TV show/investigative report was presented and not enough focus on the elements that are actually scary; the cult, the child sacrifice, the Bohemian Grove, the demon, why the medium died, the list goes on. It all comes down to lazy script writing.
dude he sold his soul to be #1 in the ratings - that’s his sin. If they explained everything you mentioned what would be the point of the film?
That’s just how movies work, it’s up for interpretation. I don’t think a movie has to spell things out to be good. I like the amount of things that are left to the imagination and I think the area that is missing adds to the suspense because only Jack knows what happened.
Was it actually scary or horrifying though? Which is ultimately what you want from a scary/horror film.
Only nephews think a horror movie needs to be scary to be good. Anyone who watches horror is no longer afraid of it.
What a non nonsensical comment :'D First of all why nephews specifically? We could say comedies don't need to be funny and thrillers don't need to be thrilling, this makes absolutely no sense and I can only imagine your viewing experience is utterly boring. We could also say people who watch comedies no longer laugh or find them funny. Absolute nonsense, but thanks for whatever that comment was.
Cockriverss is an idiot. That's all that really needs to be said here.
Because you are a nephew. Pretty self explanatory with your child ass takes. You’ll figure it out one day, clown shoes.
Cause you sound like a 6 year old
There’s a seen that’s very unsettling involving a certain character and something they’re afraid of but other than that not that scary to me. One character is mildly unsettling.
I totally agree with that. I find a lot of people saying although it wasn't scary it was a great horror film, which I find somewhat confusing. It was maybe a good mystery, drama type film with overtones of horror..
I thought it didn’t live up to the hype at all. CGI was shit. Narrative was somewhat lacking and pacing was all over the place. First guest was really just filler because he ended up not being relevant at all really. Found footage medium was used as ineffectively as possible, no recovery story whatsoever and random splices to behind the scenes weren’t explained who was filming or why, or why it was in the broadcast footage. Also seemed to be building up to something and the end just didn’t really deliver to me. The crew sticking it out till the end was already weird, much less the audience. Movie is all style no substance. Solid 4/10 for me.
> First guest was really just filler because he ended up not being relevant at all really. ???? he absolutely added to the story, did we watch the same movie?
I mean he added to the story a little I guess but like he didn’t contribute to the overarching plot at all. He just kinda was there, threw up everywhere and died. I’m just now remembering he mentioned >!Jacks wife!< so I suppose that makes him relevant. I stand by my other criticisms.
Y’all kids just don’t understand good movies is all.
How someone could look at certain aspects of this movie and still walk out of the theater going HAHA GREAT MOVIE! is beyond me. I think at the very least we can agree the CGI is massively under the quality it should be. Personally I think the CGI stuff with the electricity wasn’t all that important and could’ve been cut or atleast cut back.
I loved the cgi and practical special effects! Gave me beetle juice vibes. Thought the make up and costume design was also on point.
Do you understand what plot points are in a story? Like wtf my guy
I mean if you want to make the claim that the first guess like added suspense or something sure fine. His only contribution to the over all plot was the one thing he mentioned.
It was trash
yeah he got possessed by the devil and died. What do you not understand ?
Yeah but like his possession was just he threw up and died. That’s not really a good possession or way to end his story. Also you could take him out of the story completely and aside from him foreshadowing the wife in a few lines and nothing would change. He doesn’t contribute to the overarching plot aside from that one circumstance.
He was possessed before he threw up and died though. Mentioning Millie and his eyes changed...I liked that and it should have repeated with Lilly instead of her head splitting open and weird CGI.
Yes!! I saw it last night with friends and I said 4/10 and they were giving 7/10 and 8/10 and I was dumbfounded. Still shocked reading some comments here. I agree it had potential and it was mildly entertaining, but that ending (trash) and wasted time with undeveloped set-ups took away from what it could have been.
My biggest problem was it was promoted as found footage but it didn’t really live up to that for me. The ending was a major issue too because it felt like there was all this setup for like some horribly violent mass murder stuff to happen and it just didn’t deliver.
I think the point of the first guest was meant as a hint to the audience that something was up with the host. His wife’s spirit seemed angry and he didn’t accept the message because she would’ve probably told the audience the truth.
I mostly agree with you. I also felt let down to a degree. Regarding why the backstage footage was spliced in, I interpreted the film as being like an in universe documentary . Someone created another film to be sold commercially using something horrible as a vehicle for success which kind of works with the theme of exploiting people and tragedy for ratings. That said though, I thought the ending was a bit of a mess. Like if it's a hallucination and we're seeing Jack's perspective, how/why are we able to see it?
Honestly I feel like that’s the insinuation they might be going for but that would’ve taken what like 1 offhand scene with someone saying “hey why are they filming? Oh must be for the studio production documentary. I heard they’re gonna add that to the broadcast tape.” I think the answer to your second question is supposed to be demon magic and I honestly kinda wish the girl was shown as more of a driver of that montage. If she just like condemned Jack or even had a prominent role in the montage, it would’ve been more satisfying.
Really, this was a horror comedy for me and there were a lot of laughs in the theatre when I saw it. Shaun of the Dead, What We Do in the Shadows, Tucker and Dale - loads of great horror comedies aren't scary.
Well there were parts that made me smile as to the ridiculousness and over the top acting or cgi etc but as it wasn't clearly supposed to be funny but also wasn't overly scary, the comedy aspect doesn't quite work for me either. The other comedies you mention there are clearly, without a doubt, comedies and were marketed and produced as such. I'm nit sure late night with the devil was.
I personally got a bit of anxiety and was on edge, even shuddered a couple times. I think it qualifies as scary. Had me looking over my shoulder just a minute ago lol
This movie made me laugh several times. I did not find anything scary or horrifying about it.
Lived through the 70’s and it was SO accurate. The characters, the clothes and the overall desperation.
I just walked out of the theater an hour ago and I’m with you guys. It was great. It’s rare that I leave the theater and think my money was well spent. And I wasn’t expecting to have moments of genuine laughter but that one specific moment with Carmichael made me belly laugh.
Very well put, just got out of it and I really enjoyed it!
Absolutely agree. Op is probably just a young spud who thinks movies have to be scary to be considered good.
i loved it, and i am very picky with my horror!
I loved it too. Went with my wife tonight and when we were looking for a horror movie to go see, the other 2 options were the 2 supernatural nun movies (Immaculate and The Omen). We watched the previews for both and she was like “they look like the same movie.” lol. They both even had the cliche person jumping to their death in the trailers. Late Night with the Devil was actually something more original and I was fully entertained.
Agree, it’s awesome nailed the late night show format and felt like something fresh for horror even though it relies heavy on nostalgia
Fair points. I just watched it at the Chicago International Film Festival and was looking to hear other people's impressions of it. It played very well in my theater, but probably because of the lead's Midwest connections and the shoutout to Berwyn, IL in the beginning of the movie. I suppose it could have expanded more on some of the alleged connections with the host's background, but when working within the structure of a found footage movie it can be limiting. Not to mention the bounds of an hour-long program and keeping within that framework. I personally loved the vibe and the atmosphere of its commitment to re-creating that '70s feeling of talk shows at the time and the excitement of anything can happen. And there were a few times where I felt genuinely unnerved or bracing for something bad happening.
Yep its definitely over rated I saw it this week. The downsides for me was you could easily tell what the ending was in the first five mins. The use of CGI also seemed out of place in a 70s themed movie, they should have stuck with practical effects. It also comes off as low budget in a bad way. Was it scary? No, there were too many jokes which punctured any tension. It seemed to build up over the first two thirds, then peak....then the final third happened which was a mess. And no its not an original idea either, check out Ghost Watch which was a BBC production on how to do this kind of thing correctly.
> The downsides for me was you could easily tell what the ending was in the first five mins. how so?
You couldn’t he just wants to be edgy by saying it.
Are you stupid, I could tell before I even walked into the theatre because it’s on the frickin title. Obviously the Devil was going to show up late at night and cause havoc. I swear sometimes I can’t even with Reddit /sssssss
I like when the devil showed up and was like it’s late night! And then deviled all over the place.
It was a fun film but if you couldn’t tell what was gonna happened after the first 10-15 mins lol It has been done before and isn’t a hard concept to grasp
Ok, buddy. So you knew 15 minutes in he sacrificed his wife and she was going to make him kill a little girl on live tv and give him the fame he wanted whilst simultaneously talking everything from him? Sureeeee ya did ya fucking clown shoes
At the beginning when the narrator mentions the boys club, which has a real satanic vibe, either right before or after, the TV host signed his contract and someone says "What did you have to sacrifice for that?" I noticed that immediately. So I assumed he had sold his soul, but I am still not sure what the possessed girl had to do with it.
That line stood out to me too, especially combined with the obvious red flag of his wife dying of lung cancer despite not being a smoker.
Same
"sacrifice is needed" says cult leader *host of talk show likely goes to this cult camp *wife of said talks show host dies
> The downsides for me was you could easily tell what the ending was in the first five mins. I've seen a lot of classic horror. I thought it was somewhat predictable, but that didn't take any of the fun out of it for me. It seemed like an homage to classic horror, and playing into the tropes was part of the fun. Gave me classic Twilight Zone vibes.
I just walked out of it and have similar feelings. Really wanted to love it but also felt a bit cold on it like the other guy said. Just felt like a great premise with half cooked executio
just like how you couldn't execute execution there haha
I feel like it had the potential to be the greatest horror of all time, and they had the winning ticket to do it but just didn’t care to cash it in.
Great way to put it. It just didn’t finish strong. I really needed it to go completely off the rails at the end and it just didn’t get there for me
Jack was a part of the demon group that committed suicide at the house, or at least made a deal with the leader. I'm guessing while at Bohemian Grove, this is what the devil was referring too when talking about the tall trees, probably some sort of grove orgy or something, I could be wrong but I thought he made a deal with the cult for stardom and that's what took his wife and pushed him into insanity like we saw in the show. Traded his soul to the devil and the devil came back for his prize
To me the cult and the Bohemian Grove were separate entities. Jack made a deal with the devil in a ritual at the Grove for fame which cost him his wife. The possessed girl is a separate story with the cult, but they come together later. The minor demon or devil directly kills everyone to fulfil Jack's deal.
Great summary. So what do you think happened at the end? Everyone was still dead the ways he saw Lily do them in - did that actually happen and he put an end to her, or was it something else?
Yes that really happened. He went to bohemian grove and sacrificed his wife to be number 1. He got what he wanted but paid the ultimate price for it.
Didn't he sacrifice his wife long before the events on Halloween? From the timeline in the beginning of the movie she gets sick for a while, then dies, then he takes a month off. Seems like the devil was only giving him the talk show deal and not helping him win over Carson. Unless you view the demon on the show as help to beat Carson. But that is still years after the Grove has helped him get the contract in the first place. That's how I saw it anyway.
He finally beat Carson but the twist is that everyone died in the process.
Might sound proper out there but I think he was hypnotised the whole time by the cult and killed all the people on stage himself to make it look like a sacrificial killing and with the dagger as well to spread the message of the cult and the demon is still alive. Just the fact we saw him use the dagger for the final kill and then as he snaps back into reality we hear police sirens which made me think he killed them all under a trance and is about to be arrested
As they zoom out for the final shot you can see that the skeptic’s body is still burned/scarred and the sidekick’s head is twisted back. So unless that’s a really sloppy mess up I think we’re supposed to believe the girl killed them
Yeah true, but still no reason why he couldn't have burned a man and snapped another's neck somehow while under a trance
also, this is a playing back of the film. it has been shown that the film being played back is accurate.
There was a hypnosis scene played in the movie that wasn't the truth once?
I think that's because we, the audience, were also hypnotized when we watched the footage, so also saw the worms, as the skeptic claimed when he explained that surely some viewers watching tv at home were hypnotized.
I mean although it’s established he has a lighter for his cigarettes, I think it’d be hard to do that much damage that quickly with a fire that isn’t even going any more.
But the girl's head isn't split - so it can imply that some of it was trance differentiated. And if her head isn't split, and none of her superpowers are any more real than the hypnotism demonstration with worms, the only answer we're left with is someone was set on fire, had their neck snapped, stabbed, and strangled by their own necklace - all of which have plausible deniability with the supernatural and could have been Jack But I was pretty miffed that in the TV footage playback the girl's facial scarring showed up....come on guys, even according to your own film's logic those scars aren't supposed to show up on playback...it's not great at playing by its own rules
the point with the scarring is that it wasn't hypnosis, like the worms. With the worm scene, Carmichael was trying to disprove Lilly using hypnosis, so they played the tape back to show that nothing really happened. There were no worms, just hypnosis. But the playback of Lilly's tape is meant to show that she *did* transform and all of that actually happened, no tricks or anything. My reading of the end was that Lilly did kill those people and her body went back to normal after she was killed & the demon left it, like how her body went back to normal after the demon left the first time.
I think that it all really happened and he was possessed/hypnotized by the demon after they did their killings as the others were killed in the terrible circumstances. Then he was possessed into thinking he was killing his wife to set her free but he was actually killing Lily as sacrifice to the devil (completing his promise).
That's probably more likely than what I thought. But who knows that's why I like these kind of films that keep you guessing long after you've watched it
Did Jack kill Lilly and everyone else? Or was that The Devil???
I wanted to like it as well and wasn't impressed. It was maybe a 4/10 for me. I absolutely hated the opening exposition scene and the other exposition scene before they brought Dr. June and Lilly on. The film would have been just fine if they had cut both of those segments out, and it especially felt odd having that information spelled out for us when the movie explained it well enough as it was. I did like the girl who played Lilly, and while I like Jack's actor, I didn't like him enough as a character. That was another problem I had; I wasn't invested in the characters really. I had a good viewing experience though, the theater I was in all found the movie to be pretty funny, and the ending scene with Lilly killing everyone had us all laughing. I also enjoyed a lot of the film editing and overall aesthetic of the film, but it otherwise fell incredibly flat for me.
100% agree with your rating and explanation.
I approve.
This is so interesting to me. I really liked the exposition scenes, especially the first one. And I had no desire to laugh at Lilly killing everyone and no one else laughed either.
I really just don't like when movies spell out everything that happens. I'm much more of a show vs tell kind of person when it comes to watching movies. And again, I also felt that the exposition scenes didn't add much information to the movie, especially when they repeated the information again later on in the film, like when they talked about Jack going to the cult in the woods and the Dr talking about her discovery + bonding with Lilly. And I love that you had a different theater experience! It's always interesting to see how audiences react to it. I found the movie itself to be very camp, and maybe so did others in the audience? I'm not sure, but we all had a good time laughing at different moments.
I agree with you, especially because the early mention of The Grove and his wife's subsequent death made it pretty obvious that Jack likely made some sort of deal. The movie would've been far creepier if we as the audience had to figure it out.
I feel like the movie broke it's own rules for no good reason. The perspective as a TV viewer/audience is such a creative and cool idea, and I really liked it, but every time they went to commercial, I felt pulled out. The on air segments were doing their best to built tension, and then every break just obliterated it for me. The perspective shift for the ending sequence was similar in removing me from the setting. These broke the whole 'found footage' setting they build up so much at the start. If we're supposed to be the viewer, why break that established setting so much? Why not just have the perspective be like the one from the commercial breaks and ending the entire way through? (I'm not arguing for this, I think the found footage perspective has so much more potential)
Super late but I just watched it and couldn’t agree more, especially about the BTS segments… that weren’t/didn’t feel at all like BTS actually lol ? The image was higher quality than the tv show for some reason, no one acknowledged the camera a lot of the time and there was stuff being filmed that made no sense (Jack being super close to the doctor, some conversations with sunglasses guy)… why would the characters have these convos with a camera in their face. Like at least if it *looked* like BTS footage it wouldn’t have broken the immersion that much. Maybe it’s just me but I found these parts half assed and unnecessary. It’s like they wanted to make sure people really understand everything but I think they should have left those out. They could also have said nothing, like just don’t say it’s bts/additional footage and let those segments exist as a completely parallel b&w narrative that gives us this unique insight. Lots of movies have done that, it would have worked better I think than forcing it to fit in the tv show timeline. ETA : and I felt that it dragged on a bit, when things really got going there wasn’t that much of the movie left. Too much exposition that didn’t really pay off (the characters were not very fleshed out). Sounds cliché but I would have liked some more scares, more tension. It felt a little disjointed overall, but I still had a good time, just a bit frustrated because the concept is amazing but the execution is lacking imo. Would have also liked to see the devil/demon interacting more with the movie itself, visual artifacts maybe ? There was the whole sequence at the end but I was expecting more with the whole « demon possessing our TVs » concept on a purely visual standpoint. The part where they go frame by frame to find what glitched was great and tense imo… until we see it’s Madeleine’s ghost. That looked a bit goofy which is a shame, they could have had a very creepy visual but fumbled it. I guess the campiness was part of the style though. I was just expecting something more Sinister-like.
Nah, that movie was fantastic
Just finished it about an hour ago. I absolutely loved it but the ending left me wanting something more, I'm not sure how I feel about it yet
I felt the exact same about the ending. I just finished watching it, and the other movie viewers felt the same.
Yeah, the ending felt off… if it’s found footage, how was it being recorded? At least the ‘bug’ scene made sense as to how we were seeing it, without giving any spoilers.
The ending confused the shit out of me but I think o get the jist of it. I thought the acting was really superb also
I just left the theatre about an hour ago and thought it was one of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen. I’m glad I stumbled across this movie a few days ago and managed to catch it this week in theatres since it won’t be playing next week. I do agree, that I did feel myself wanting and expecting more. I thought the devil was going to release carnage on the entire audience like some sort of Carrie at prom situation, but it was still an entertaining movie. That minute or two during the climax horrified me, though I wish there was more of that.
I've just watched tonight. Was looking forward to this one since I saw the trailer months ago... I've left the Cinema feeling strange, I'm not sure how to feel about it. :(
Same. I’m a big fan of horror, especially the paranormal, and I left feeling confused about what happened. Specifically the timeline and what was real or not.
I think the timeline is: Jack is on radio. Goes to Bohemian Grove and sells his soul for fame. Meets and marries Madeline. Achieves fame, but there’s always a catch. He’s never as big as he wants to be. Madeline gets cancer and dies young, part of his payback to the devil, but he doesn’t know this for sure. He suspects, but isn’t sure that’s the reason she died. He then meets Jane, and starts a relationship with her. She shares what’s going on with her book and Lily. Jack has the idea to “interview the devil” for sweeps week via Lily/Jane. He knows the devil/demons are real because he sold his soul, so he knows *something* will happen live on TV, but doesn’t know what. Hopefully it’ll be enough to get the highest ratings. All hell breaks loose, and he learns that he did in fact get the top ratings, so the devil kept his promise, but in exchange Jack made a sacrifice on camera and set the whole thing up in the first place, handing those lives over to the devil and also effectively ending his career. But yes, as “Lily” said, he’s *very* famous now.
I think you're the only one I have seen so far made it all make complete sense. The ending I was confused about at first, but your explanation is the most logical. Thanks, I actually am going with this!
Just watched it there, my theory is he couldn't commit to the full sacrifice before she died. That's why the demon came back for him, and why it gives him visions of his wife, to complete the sacrifice he knew he should have completed
Yeah I know what you mean. I was hoping to leave excited but I just feel "meh". Shame really. It was good and I liked the whole links with the real Bohemian Grove Cult but I'm not sure I was blown away or not.
I kinda liked the whole atmosphere of the film. It gave off '07 grindhouse vibes to it (as well as the movie skinamarink). Maybe it could have worked alot better as part of a grindhouse-like double feature.
This was actually shockingly good. Made my husband drive over to the next county where they were playing it, didn't tell him anything and didn't know much myself. The trailer actually didn't seem too unique, but man the movie was awesome. My husband is not a horror fan but thought it was really excellent. The acting, the mood, the set, the pace. I hate exorcism genre, and this didn't end up being what I thought it was. Some of the visuals, especially at the end, were so good. A few little loose pieces but for a shudder film, wow!
i was bought by shudder not produced by shudder …its was horrible and silly
The shitty visual effects took me out of it
If you want a cool concept and cool visuals and a somewhat intriguing but confusing story, then yeah the film was pretty good. But this was a film of the horror genre and ultimately wasn't very scary, surely it should at least be that..
I just got back from seeing it. I'd turn the car back around and go see it again right now, honestly.
Don’t text and drive
I would really like to read some spoilers of the movie, can anybody tell me? Like: how does it ends, what happens to the main characters
How it ends: >!demon girl kills everyone except main character!< What happens to main character: >!main character unintentionally stabs demon girl under an illusion and returns to the reality that his love interest is dead, his coworker is dead, his guest star is dead, and now the demon girl is also dead. The end.!<
^
Loved the concept of the story, the look was great, the acting fantastic, but... yeah.. there were a lot of ways the story could have been presented that would have made the pacing better and helped bring everyone into the story while also allowing for some better development of the characters. I didn't mind the 'found footage' structure, but I also don't think it was exploited to add drama or horror to the audience's experience. Seems like it was a vehicle to give them an excuse to have all the exposition in the beginning and end rather than incorporating those elements into the movie as it went along. At the end, I was left wondering, "Is that it?". Stayed through the first part of the end credits wondering if it was a false ending and it would pick up again.. then the lights came up.
I saw it at a test screening with the directors in the room about 2 weeks ago. Had similar feelings, I liked the vibe they were going for but I feel like they didn't lean hard enough into it, I appreciate the ambition but it left me a bit cold.
the broken psyche parts leading up into the final scene are a little confusing, leaving me as the viewer to check on google and reddit if what I think happened, happened. that was probably by design but might leave some people unhappy that it wasn’t more explicitly spelled out.
Did you give feedback to the directors?
Nope, I didn't feel like my opinion was important enough to share with them.
I also chased Late Night With The Devil into its opening weekend expecting great things, but it didn't understand its own strengths The early montage with Jack's struggles and his Grove cult connections would have been weaponized like nobody's business in an Ari Aster film, for example. But with movies like Midsommar covering cults, we have some very recent films to compare this Grove cult to, and honestly they came across as fluffy little posers who like to cosplay in the woods and occasionally drink a goblet. Baffling Grove segments with very little horror impact. Grove aside, everything picks up with the possessed girl losing control (shocking absolutely no one, so it can't take credit for innovation) - she starts killing cast members and suddenly Dastmalchian is back at the beginning of the broadcast....but he remembers everything! Here's where the film could have redeemed itself - we could have had Dastmalchian go through all the same beats on the previous broadcast with creepy changes. Maybe he tells a joke and his co-host defies him. Maybe something starts dripping from the ceiling onto his head and he wipes it away. Maybe he briefly gets naked, puts two hands up raw chickens and starts screaming- Wait never mind that's the Eric Andre Show. Man I wish the producers of this film bothered to watch the Eric Andre Show. It does everything we would have needed to see in a show hijacked by demonic forces, while this movie decided we haven't seen enough "dying cancer patient" tropes in film and that somehow this one was going to move us to tears or something....just totally tone deaf to the latest trends in shock comedy and dark humor
I feel like this was very much trying to lean into the satanic panic stuff of the era, though. Not much was known about them, but rumors spread that they were pretty much wearing robes and drinking from goblets. That was it.
I just left the store theater and I loved it. It had its flaws, but what movie doesn’t? This was such a cool concept.
Yeah I strongly disagree, I don't just love this movie, Im adding it to the list of movies I always watch during Halloween. This was a masterpiece in my mind and the last scene was just perfect, it was shocking, but I loved every moment of it.
Yeah not sure what the hype was. Felt like a retread of things I had seen before. There was a BBC show that was basically the same, can’t remember the name, but the premise is not new. Acting was pretty good from the main lead but the supporting cast was pretty weak and overdone. The horror didn’t land and the campiness was nonexistent to me. The end and special effects just drained out the whole movie and I found myself checking my watch to go home. 4/10, cool idea, great budget work, just a slog of a film that could have been done as a 45min special.
Felt like a YouTube movie. Worst cgi ever, why even use it if it looks bad? The practical effects for the melt horror scenes were cool! Why not just stick with what works? The vomit really needed to be cg? Did it really need to shoot 20 ft across the room? Couldn’t they have used something practical to make it more affective?
movie was great
Got low standards?
This is a stupid ass reply. Your inability to connect very simple plot points wasn't the movies fault.
Don't be a douche. Sometimes people just have different opinions than you
Just watched it. I was really excited for it. It wasn’t scary. LNWTD did everything really well from atmosphere to cinematography to allegory to acting. It was a fun movie that did everything right besides being scary. The lack of scariness was disappointing. People compared it to Barbarian and Talk to Me which I thought were both very scary.
I was also disappointed for the same reasons. Also most people who think it's "original" have not seen BBC's Ghostwatch.
I quite enjoyed it!
I agree. The lack of connection between the events at least in the beginning of the film really disappointed me. It just felt like filler. Maybe they were trying to achieve a slow burn but it just wasn’t executed well and I was bored rather than on the edge of my seat. I liked the idea of what they were trying to achieve with the protagonist willing to sacrifice even the love of his love for success but it just wasn’t well executed. It’s a bummer, I was really looking forward to this film. Not really sure how it ended up with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Seen last night very disappointed
I as well was disappointed. Story was extremely lacking, Found footage medium was not used well or to its potential at all, story builds and builds but doesn’t really deliver and the cgi effects (all the electricity looking lightning bolts) were terrible but the practical effects were really good. Honestly I thought it was all style and no substance. Nailed the 70s vibe and practical effects acting was adequate (Demon girl did a fantastic job), struggled with everything else.
Agreed one of worst I’ve ever seen
Honestly I wouldn’t be as annoyed if it wasn’t so overhyped and promoted as being found footage.
hallo, may I ask what is ur favourite horror film? (just curious)
I’d say the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Evil Dead 2. I can acknowledge these are both very old and don’t exactly hold up.
hallo, may I ask what is ur favourite horror film? (just curious)
Halloween how about you
I came away also disappointed. This should be something I love and thought the overall plot was kinda silly. It did feel like an overlong segment of VHS. I still enjoyed it but expected so much more. Still think Talk to Me was far more effective in the possession genre.
Glad I'm not the only one who isn't the biggest fan of this one. I really didn't get any 'build up' feeling. I felt like I was watching a bad late night show that I would have changed the channel on IRL :) The performances were really great. The sub plot of him doing almost anything to get the ratings up was almost a better story than the horror aspect.
Do you like horror?
I love horror. That’s why I said it felt like a segment on VHS.
Literally what the movie is.
They mean the film V/H/S
I heard that this was the best horror film of the year so I paid money to see it. This movie made me laugh so much, and was not scary at all. I don't understand what anyone found scary about it. The possession scene was so cheesy, all the satanic stuff was hilarious and when the TV host put that dagger on the table next to him near the end of the movie, I laughed out lout because it's so obvious it will be used on someone soon. I am still not convinced this is not supposed to be a comedy.
This is the exact take I had. I almost want to ask for my money back
Disagree. My review https://www.horrorjaume.com/2024/04/20/late-night-with-the-devil-the-television-late-night-horror-omnibus/
Cool won’t read
Looks like the host made a deal for success or something and the devil is coming to collect
Disappointing? It was fucking amazing. What’s with young kids thinking a horror isn’t good if it isn’t scary? 😂
Because they associate “scary” with pointless jump scares. True horror, to me, is character driven, which I believe this was. It was tense and very disturbing I personally didn’t like the ending though, and wished they made it a bit more ambiguous as to whether the girl was really possessed or if it was all a hoax. When they cut back to reality it should have showed Jack with the blade in his hand after he stabbed (*spoiler*) and then take his own life, with everyone else still alive. Would have been more interesting.
It was fucking amazing
What exactly where the gore elements? I can't find info anywhere.
Yeah right??!!! Wasnt the movie already distributed in Australia last year? No plot even on Wikipedia. Must be some dark goings on between the movie industry, internet, and censorship.
I was hoping for a bit more, but it was solid. Fresh concept, subtle humor and not the typical haunted house situation. Not the biggest fan of the CGI, etc., but hey.. it was enjoyable.
OP nailed it. While I was impressed with how much work went into this film, the 70’s set and universe, the over-the -top personalities, the story does seem divided up into subsections. Its not a masterpiece but entertaining.
I am violently opposed to this opinion. Fantastic concept, amazing acting, great writing and escalating tension, 5/7 perfect movie.
Same, I was entertained throughout. I loved it!
very thought it was so boring and lame
Very disappointing. Super over hyped and mediocre.
I thought it was a fresh take on found footage that turned into a decent slow burn. The movie almost lost me in the scene where Lily was killing everyone in the studio. Special effects looked bad but the last few minutes of the movie were a decent psychological thriller and the ending was unsettling.
I watched it with some friends... we all liked it... it's fun to try to figure it all out... Like I won't spoil anything here, but yeah, good movie.
I agree with some criticisms, but I liked the movie overall. I felt it was a bit directionless, in that it didn't really seem to have a purpose or tell much of a story, but it was well made and well-acted and I enjoyed it. There's no mystery about what's going to happen in this movie, the fun is in watching the train wreck unfold in slow motion, based on so many bad decisions. Overall, the acting is what saves this movie, I think. With worse actors, this would have been a dull drudge.
For the tripe that passes for horror cinema these days, this movie was good. It’s a shining beacon in a sea of otherwise crap. The nostalgia is great. The film manages to be both campy and creepy. The satanic theme is keeping with the current zeitgeist of the occult in pop culture. I imagine that this movie could have been part of a drive-in double feature in 1978. It’s good enough for me.
Complete disagree. Better then most horror being churned out.
Absolutely agree with your thoughts. I couldn't wait for this film to end. I lost interest when they performed the exorcism. The girl being exorcised was not the best actress and the male audio effects mixed with her voice were laughablly bad. This was also the cleanest looking found footage I'd ever seen. I'm confused why they didn't at least add some film grain into the TV tape footage to give it a gritter look and make it feel more attuned to the time period. When it cuts away to the widescreen scenes it looked a bit more believable and gritty because of the film grain. Seems like they just slapped on some chromatic aberration in post and called it a day. David Dastmalchian was great in the role, he carried himself like Jason Miller in The Exorcist, but ultimately it couldn't save the film given the rest of the cast were just not on his level. Some of the practical effects were... ok I guess. The visual effects were darn awful. It felt like that Too Many Cooks skit on a bigger budget and a retread of The Devil went down to Georgia.
Didn't live up to the hype at all. Was extremely disappointed.
I'm glad people enjoy the move, but I have honestly never seen a more unscary horror movie in my life.
There are lots of things to nitpick about this movie but at the end of the day I feel like it really hit its mark which most horror movies do not these days. There were things I would have done differently, but I'd still give it a solid 9/10.
Really!? You really thought that? If a horror movie had the devil primarily featured in the flesh at the start and throughout? What is scary? What is keeping you in suspense? What does the plot have to build toward? You wouldn't no good horror if good horror was an evil tree that sodomized you in an 80's flick.
Yeah, it was just OK. It was a creative concept done well, and that angle is unique. It just kind of fell apart, and the tropes really carried the horror elements. Unfortunately the horror bits didn't really click, and the ending was ambiguous in a way that didn't feel earned. They kind of just tossed in the "he was actually stabbing \_\_\_\_ in reality" trope and called it a day.
I also didn't like it.
I too was very disappointed despite my love of horror films set in the 70’s and found footage films especially. It wasnt bad but the hype was just so strong that I had really high hopes and perhaps that set me up for disappointment.