Doctor Movie: Episode 314: Late Night With The Devil
Things are getting spooky on a late night TV show, and the only person that can make any sense of it is gonna be the host.
All that and a whole lot more right here on Doctor Movie.
Hey, what's happening everybody?
Welcome back to Dr.
Mooby, your favorite show on wheels.
She's got wheels, wheels of steel.
Little Saxon for you there.
So I'm cruising on down the road, just had a band meeting, a band rehearsal, I guess you would say, which hardly ever happens.
And wanted to take the time to talk about the new movie that you're kind of seeing circulated quite a bit, and it's definitely my wheelhouse.
Had several people ask me about it.
Matter of fact, John Bell reached out to me the other day.
Wanted to know if I'd seen this one.
And I had not till now.
So we are going to talk about Late Night With The Devil.
It says 2023, but we're just now kind of catching it, you know, around here.
It says it's a horror slash comedy.
I don't know about the comedy part.
Maybe.
I mean, I can see where you're trying to go for a, obviously, you're going for a nostalgic feel here.
And the whole Late Night TV show, a la Johnny Carson kind of atmosphere for the show.
So it kind of works.
I guess I'll give it that.
It's not really much of a comedy.
It's kind of a throwback film, and we'll get into that as we go along.
Obviously, it's supposed to be in the 70s, so yeah, obviously, it's a throwback film.
But it's a throwback film in many different ways besides of it just being a time period piece, right?
It has a 7.5 out of 10 on IMDb, 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.
So, that's pretty good.
Yeah, I guess you just heard me say it.
I probably still say it funny to you, but tomatoes, right?
Tomatoes, tomatoes.
I am from, you know, West Tennessee, and most people around here say, maters.
They got me some of the red maters right there.
But I happen to say tomatoes, because I just want to be a...
I don't want to say I want to say tomato, right?
Not tomatoes, tomatoes.
Anywho, have no idea where that was coming from.
We are looking at this movie.
Let's do a little synopsis.
In 1977, a live television broadcast goes horribly wrong unleashing an evil into the nation's living rooms.
Interesting concept.
Not a total original story.
You can tell what they borrowed from in this, and it's totally fine.
If anything, I think this is a great movie to make you go back and appreciate what it pulled from.
So for that, kind of have to give it kudos.
It is directed by Cameron and Colin Canares?
Canares?
Not sure how to say their name.
It's a pair of brothers.
They've done several movies.
So that's kind of what you get there.
I don't see a...
Oh, here we go.
Why To Watch.
They've changed the way this looks, folks.
So if you hear me struggling to find my favorite part of the show, hopefully your favorite part of the show as well, is the Why To Watch.
They've kind of snuck it into an area where it's hard to find now.
But being the reckless, careless driver that I am, I don't mind pushing a few buttons and finding what I want.
I'm kidding, obviously.
So, Why To Watch number one says, huh, most search horror movie on streaming today.
It is on Shudder, I believe.
It's not where I saw it.
I can't tell you where I saw it.
Just because I'm legally bound not to tell you where I saw it.
Somebody else says it is wry, frightful, and horrific.
Yeah, I'll give you that.
Wry, that's a new one.
We haven't heard that before.
It's scary with a great plot and wildly original.
It's also a lot of fun.
You know, it's weird because it's kind of original.
It's kind of a...
It's like a Tarantino film, right?
Where he's pulled from 15 different movies, specific parts of movies, and threw them into a new idea, and we think it's original.
I'm not downplaying it.
I do think it's original.
I think it's pretty dang brilliant, actually.
But there's no doubt where they pulled some information for this movie or influence, for sure.
Next one says, a cleverly conceived and deftly directed fright flick with top-notch performances and a cracking pace.
You know, I'm surprised somebody brought up the pace, because to me, this is a slow burn.
This is what I love about this time, you know, supposed to be 1977.
You guys know, if you listen to my show, my sweet spot, right?
From about 76 up to about 82, that weird theatrical slow burn that I'm such a fan of.
And this movie is driven that way.
So cracking pace, I don't know, maybe you were so into it.
It felt that way.
I felt more of a slow burn.
I guess the finale of it has that slow burn kind of feel to it.
I guess the rest of it, I can kind of see where it's moving pretty quick, and we'll talk about why.
One more, oozing with charm, great use of humor, fantastic art direction and set direction, great cinematography.
Yeah, I mean, it's a well put together film.
It feels kind of bare-boned, but it should be, because you're doing a 1977 talk show.
So your sets are going to be, you know, shag carpet and bad chairs that have been thrown away 40 years ago.
They really do capture that feel, and it's done really well.
As far as our cast, our main person, Jack Delroy, who's the host of the show, is played by David, I'm going to mess his name up, Dasmachian, Suicide Squad, The Dune movies, Dark Knight.
I mean, the guy's been in some great flicks, great actor.
He's Suicide Squad.
I loved him in that one.
Polka Dot Man.
I believe that's who he was.
We've got Ingrid Torelli playing Lily Diabo.
She's a character that was raised by a satanic cult, and she has been taken under the wing by another woman that's on the show who's kind of a therapist, psychologist, psychology, I don't know, person, a doctor.
And she's written a book about conversation with the devil.
I believe that's what it was called.
She's written this book about this demon that's living in this girl.
This girl, her life was, she was born and raised to be sacrificed to the devil.
And you get a rundown of all this stuff.
Anyways, I don't, I guess we can look.
Well, I'm not going to be able to.
I can't really tell you what else she's been in.
Oh, the mirror.
She was in The End.
That's really the only things I can find.
I'm limited on Wi-Fi here in this area.
And so Cass is going to be kind of sketchy for me to tell you anything else these other people have been in.
Unless I just really remember something.
Which is, you know, not necessarily important.
Laura Gordon is in this.
She plays June.
She's the doctor in this.
We've got Gina Hague in this, who is married to our main character.
She's Madeline Delroy.
And she has passed.
You get a backstory at the beginning of this about their relationship and, you know, what all's happened.
Ian Bliss is in this.
There's Carmichael Hunt.
He's kind of an a-hole.
Skeptic.
Is he the...?
No, that's not him.
Who's our skeptic that's in this?
Yes.
I guess it is him.
We also have Fazal Bazi in this.
He plays Christo, who is a mind reader that comes on stage and performs this thing.
It's supposed to be a Halloween special.
And again, you get a lot of backstory here.
This is what makes this movie interesting.
I'll get out of the cast stuff and just get on with it.
Again, limited on what I can find because of this area that I'm in where there is no reception whatsoever.
So here I am, folks, driving out in the middle of nowhere.
No Wi-Fi for my phone.
It's dead.
But I'm doing it for you.
It's all for you, people.
Which, if you know that line, you know it's from The Omen, which may have a little influence on this movie.
Yeah, you get a backstory.
This guy has a TV show.
He has that perfect TV kind of life, him and his wife.
His wife is everything.
They work together.
He's becoming very successful.
He gets involved with this group that's one of these high society, underground groups that you hear about that celebrities get into, and it's not necessarily always a good thing, which kind of ties into another huge movie that this really pulls from.
And as things go on, he's getting more successful.
Show is still getting beat by Johnny Carson, right?
Because Johnny's the king.
But Show is starting to get stale a little bit, and then he ends up having a terrible travesty when his wife passes away.
And he just disappears for quite a long time.
They bring the show back, he's fighting through it, he's struggling, can't get the ratings up.
They're doing a Halloween special, and he's gonna try to make up some ground here, right?
So that's why he has the people coming on the show that he does.
And it starts off just like any other talk show.
He comes out, he comes out from behind the sliding door, he tells some jokes, and introduces the acts that are gonna be there for the night.
And Kristell comes out, does his bit where he's trying to read people's minds, it doesn't go as planned on the first one, and things get crazy, right?
He starts hearing a name, and he's trying to figure out, and nobody's responding.
He said, does this name mean something to somebody?
And you see his eyes roll back in his head, something is definitely up.
So after he gets done, he sits down, they give him a glass of water to cool out while they take a break.
Here's the other thing about this movie, is it's one thing to see what's being shown to the public through the TV, but you also get to see the behind the scenes, like when they go to commercial break, it's a live TV show, so you get to see all the ramblings going on and things that are happening backstage and all this stuff.
You're seeing Christo just freaking out.
And they come back on air, they bring in this other guy who's the big skeptic.
He doesn't believe in any of this stuff and he goes around and tries to prove that things are fake, right?
So he's on here to prove that Christo is fake and then all the other guests.
And out of nowhere, something happens to Christo and he just like starts throwing up, violently throwing up blood, bowel, black something.
And all over the set, all over the skeptic guy.
And so they end up taking Christo backstage and they don't tell anybody, but ambulance comes and gets him.
And you can, when he comes back live on the air, he hears the ambulance in the background.
You can hear it on the TV screen.
And you find out that Christo was taken to the hospital before he got there, he's already dead.
So, you know, strange things are happening.
At this point, he's getting ready to bring out the girl and the lady that wrote the book, June.
Now, you don't really see a lot of this at first, but apparently June and Jack, who's the star of the show, host of the show, has a little affair going, maybe, a little love or they like each other.
But they introduce Lily, and she's this very, very timid girl who's very polite, but every once in a while, she'll say something a little out of the pocket, and it catches Jack's attention because it's aimed directly at him, but it'll be in passing.
It's almost like he's not even sure that he heard her say what she said, so it's pretty interesting when it comes to that.
Then it gets to where they have a videotape that shows the back history of where she came from.
It shows the cult.
It shows what's going on.
So you get that whole back story, then it all comes down to the host convincing June to basically do kind of a hypnotic trance to bring the spirit out of her, and we can have it live on TV.
You know, it's great for numbers, right?
June is totally against it, but she finally gives in, and things get crazy from there.
I'm not going to ruin anything else, but there's a lot that happens in this movie from kind of that point on, very slowly, very timidly, and it all comes to a head, obviously, at the end, where you find out what this all means, you know, is she possessed by the devil?
Is it something else?
Only one way to find out.
You got to check this movie out.
Here's the thing about this movie, and I may be giving too much away.
It is a rendition of Rosemary's Baby.
And I'm not saying it's just like Rosemary's Baby, I'm not saying that it ripped off Rosemary's Baby.
But there is a definite storyline that happens in this that is exactly Rosemary's Baby.
It's just kind of flipped a bit.
It pulls from Bad Dreams.
I don't know if y'all remember that movie or not.
It pulls from several different sources in different ways and plops it all in here together.
It makes for a very cool and interesting film.
Again, if you make a movie about this time and you kind of nail the surroundings and the atmosphere, I applaud you because it's not looked at enough, I don't think.
So yeah, it's interesting to take all these backstories and twist it all together and come up with this film that's about this guy's, you know, goal of success and the price you pay for it.
Yeah.
So there you go.
There's your Rosemary's baby, right?
So yeah, here's the only negative about this movie.
I think this movie is brilliant.
I think it's well-paced.
I think it's well-acted.
I think it's a great, great film.
My only problem is I think it's a one-time watch.
I don't know that I will revisit this one, not because of it being disturbing or anything, just because, probably because of my age.
You know, a lot of this I have seen before.
I like everything about this movie.
But it just didn't show me anything I didn't expect, maybe.
But it's very well done.
So for somebody that hasn't seen the ton of old movies that this kind of pulls from, it may be a re-watch.
And again, I'm trying to describe how I really like this movie, but I just don't see it being a repeatable watch for me.
It's almost like a one and done, and you go, wow, that was really good.
I don't see myself really revisiting, unless I really wanted to dig into more of the backstage stuff that kind of happens.
But I don't know, I'm good, I'm good.
I'm glad I saw it, I like it, and I'm kind of like, yeah, okay, I'm good.
That's kind of my take on it.
I'll go ahead and give it a rating.
It's a four out of five, maybe a 4.5.
It's a well-made film.
It gets a lot of things right.
It has the atmosphere that I love.
It's just, I don't know, I just don't see it being one that I will go back and watch many times.
Because it's almost a, you get it the first time, and you're not going to pick up on anything really different the next time around.
So, and maybe that's a sign of it being a good movie.
I don't know.
So, anywho, that's my take on Late Night With The Devil.
Thoroughly enjoyed it.
My only downside is I don't see myself interested in wanting to really check it out again.
Maybe down the road, maybe I will.
But other than that, brilliant film.
So, alright folks, that's all I got on this one.
Let me know what you think.
I'm interested to see...
I haven't heard anybody say anything negative about it.
So, I wonder if there's anybody out there that doesn't like it.
Now, when I say that, I'm talking about legit horror fans.
Now, I know there's different levels of horror fans.
Because a splatter person is probably going to think this is boring, right?
I'm talking like legit, overall well-rounded horror fans.
I just wonder if there's anybody that didn't dig it.
Because I see that being a hard thing.
I think it's that well-made.
So, yeah, be interesting.
Hear your thoughts on it.
Let me know what you think.
