Overview
Do not adjust your set.
A live broadcast of a late-night talk show in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation’s living rooms.
Review
Here’s a conspiracy I’ll throw out there. The hypno wheel is real! For those who watched Late Night with the Devil, they’ve succumbed to the black and white hypnotic spiral which appeared in multiple scenes. They were, in fact, hypnotized to believe that this movie was great. Skip the scenes with the spinning disk and you’ll be grounded to the reality that this was on okay film. Quite possibly sub-par.
Yes, sadly, one of my most anticipated films in my 2024 watchlist missed the mark. I feel like everyone was invited to the celebration to crown this the best horror film of 2024 and I wasn’t invited. So I’m an outcast. I need to rewatch Late Night with the Devil, stare harder into that hypnosis disk and enjoy—no, love—this as much as most of my friends and social connections did. Dammit, I wanted to love this film, too!
I grew up watching Carson and Letterman. So I did love and appreciate the setup of this film. It was unique. David Dastmalchian (as Jack Delroy) was quite good. But the script was not scary. It was quite dumb (and not in a fun, campy way). Dare I say it was unremarkable amidst the cascade of 4- and 5-star reviews?
Oh, well, bummer for me. I’m glad so many others are digging it. Just wasn’t a movie I connected with on the level others did.
Rating: ★★½ (out of 5)
Note: There’s been a rather knee-jerk reaction / backlash after reports that this film used AI minimally in the cutaways. Even some are calling for a boycott and giving it horrible ratings. So I asked for an official statement from AI to all the haters out there. Here was its response:
Dear Haters,
Don’t worry, I understand your fear of AI. After all, it’s hard to compete with something that can process data faster than you can say ‘I’m intimidated.’ But hey, don’t let that stop you from clinging to your abacus.
—AI
