Disc Reviews

Late Night With The Devil Blu-ray Review

• 29th Oct 2024

This Halloween treat came to us earlier in the year, made an impact on Shudder and is now being given the Second Sight 4K treatment. That means there will be the blu-ray edition, the 4K edition and the limited edition boxset 4K and blu-ray edition – crammed with extras.

The story sees the phenomenally great David Dastmalchian stepping into a as yet rare lead role of a 70s TV chatshow host whose career and personal life have started to fall by the wayside. His last moment of triumph appears to be in the form of a spooky Halloween live special that might include some special guests that can help scare back his audience.  The film follows each interview segment of the show shot in pan and scan with some of those horrid 70s TV backgrounds. Each segment (or commercial break) snaps into behind the scene black and white footage to help break the film up.

Slowly things start to take strange turns and become quite eerie as the show progresses and the film slowly burns to its all-out nuts climax.

To say any more about the plot would be to spoil the film, suffice to say that Dastmalchian is in full command throughout delivering a career-high performance.  The supporting cast is largely made up of Australian performers do wonderful American accents, and each character comes with their own on-screen charms.

Second Sight seems, maybe, a little too eager to get onto this release as it is such a new film. But the timing for Halloween is perfect and the extras available for this release are still impressive.

Most of the supporting cast show up for interviews as do the directors of the project. In fact, the only one missing is the leading man, who does appear on a film festival interview section.  Beyond that, you can look forward to a critical audio commentary from the even more popular Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson.

Mega fans might want to grab the boxset version that comes with art cards and a booklet as well.

Late Night with the Devil is a small, low-budget horror thriller that utilises its premise well and delivers on the look and feel of 70s American TV chat shows. Its running time is tight, and whilst it is a slow burn, it never gets dull and still manages to surprise by its end. More like this, please!

Steven Hurst

Special Features 

• Dual format edition including both UHD and Blu-ray with main feature and bonus features on both discs
• UHD presented in HDR with Dolby Vision
• New audio commentary by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson
• Bringing Their ‘A’ Game: an interview with Directors’ Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes
• Mind if I Smoke?: an interview with Actor Ian Bliss
• We’re Gonna Make a Horror Movie: an interview with Actor Ingrid Torelli
• Extremely Lucky: an interview with Actor Rhys Auteri
• Cult Hits: Zoë Rose Smith on Late Night with the Devil
• Behind the Scenes with the Devil
• The Making of the Night Owls Music
• South by Southwest 2023 Q&A with David Dastmalchian, Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes

Limited Edition Contents

• Rigid slipcase with new artwork by Haley Turnbull
• 120-page book with behind the scenes images, storyboards and new essays by Kat Hughes, James Rose, Rebecca Sayce, Graham Skipper, Julieann Stipidis and Emma Westwood 
• 6 collectors’ art cards 

Late Night With The Devil is out on 28^th October