Late Night With The Devil

I have been going to Regal Delancey on Fridays instead of Tuesdays. It wasn't intentional, but it makes it feel a little ceremonious. Not that Tuesday's weren't; Regal Tuesdays can feel like a big event, provided you have enough people to see a movie with you. I don't really ask people to go with me, because... There really isn't a reason. I just thought it sounded nice to see a movie alone.

Note: I did call somebody earlier and asked if they (she) would want to see a movie with me, but it was declines (politely) so that was when I thought it sounded nice to see a movie alone.

There was a much larger quantity of movies out this week, and I suppose this is what makes the Regal Unlimited more worthwhile, yeah? Several horrors, and several lesbian movies... Seeing the former category seemed more appropriate alone. I did see an article of a guy in Detroit who was arrested during a showing of the new Kristen Stewart movie. He was found passed out in his seat, with his dick ajar, supposedly in the act (of beating off). I wasn't worried about the latter, as I have never done this in the movie theaters, and I do not plan to.

I booked a showtime for LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL, 4:30 showing - went ahead and purchased a ticket for IMMACULATE at 7:50 as well. They both had runtimes of 90 minutes, give or take, and I really wanted to catch up on some new flicks, due to me falling asleep during the first hour of DUNE 2. I love seeing two movies in the theaters back-to-back. I've never done it alone, though, and considered that this would be a 5-hour experience. Fortunately, I had an hour-and-a-half in between, so I would get something to eat, take a walk, shoot some photos, what the hell ever.

Another reason to get Unlimited - I again got a free popcorn!!!! So I got my popcorn and Cookie Dough Bites, which is my favorite combination as of late.

I didn't know a thing about LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL, only that it was a horror-ish type thing, which is a genre I find very easy to stay awake during in the theaters. The movie is a found-footage-ish type thing as well. I am truly thankful that it is not presented as something that is real, which these kinds of things try to do often.

Jack Delroy is the host of a 70's talk show called Night Owls (think Johnny Carson: He is mentioned, by last name, as the competition, and it's mildly one of the catalysts for all the shit that happens). He has a large audience - not quite as large as Carson, but a close competitor, probably. His wife is dying of cancer, and he brings her on the show shortly before her passing, which helps to boost his ratings. Not long after, Jack's ratings drop again, forcing him to lower himself to Geraldo-like shenanigans on air.

This is all told to us at the beginning of the movie via voiceover, by the way, in a mockumentary kind of way. Kind of stupid, and takes you out of the found-footage style that it segues us into, but it's kind of a comedy, too, in a way, so I guess that the suspension of disbelief isn't that needed.

The rest of the movie is an unaired Halloween episode of Night Owls. Jack has on some psychic types, some hypnotists, a writer of a book on a Lavey-ish sect of Satanism - and that's what you're looking at. Weird spooky stuff happens, hell kind of breaks loose, we find out about Jack's history with his own cult-like organization with rich&famous types (the movie really likes these themes - we see images of Charles Manson, Satanic Panic related crap in the intro), and the audience, and us, the real audience, watches a fake episode of Late Night TV for an hour and some change. It plays like an alternate universe version of THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW but instead of GARRY SHANDLING it is instead a guy who sold his soul to the devil, pretty much. It seems to want to play it straight, but there's so much little stupid things that I guess it's just a horror-comedy. But it seems weird to call it that, too.

There's all this stupid VHS filter stuff going on, with stock glitches and things like that, which, again, I don't think they were trying to be authentic (and if they were, I guess they would use actual cameras from that timeframe, which sure, budgetary restrictions, etc. but if you're going to try to match a certain authentic you could at least try to make it look right - and a lot of the effects don't really match with 1976, to me - and I haven't even mentioned that there is stuff happening outside of the "Live TV" realm where people are backstage talking, which further takes you out of it trying to be a found-footage movie). It takes awhile to pick up, as well, and the first half, in pacing, does feel like pretty standard boring old talk show stuff, which I thought was cool, but there isn't much that happens in the second half that accelerates it much. There's some cool little effects and tiny amount of gore, but most of this is novelty. The analog horror thing doesn't really work for me, unless the style is, like, perfect. I thought 2022's SKINAMARINK did this wonderfully. I thought LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL did the gimmick well enough, but as a horror-comedy, it isn't really scary, and nothing happens that's really funny. One funny thing is - before the movie started, there were like, literally ten production company logos, and I still am unsure on whether or not it was supposed to be funny. But the audience laughed either way. One of them was called SPOOKY MOVIES, which was the hardest I laughed in the whole thing.

This feels mostly like negative criticism, but I enjoyed watching it, tbh. It really was a stupid as shit little movie, but I enjoyed it, and I do recommend it, although in some odd way, I think it would be better suited on a streaming service - makes more sense to watch a "cut-from-tv" episode of something than to see it in theaters - but I had a fun time, and I absolutely did not fall asleep.

I left the movie feeling good as hell, anticipating the other horror release this week, IMMACULATE. I took a walk around downtown, got some dumplings, and took some pictures.

My IMMACULATE review here.

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