I find the mock documentary style to be the perfect compromise between the cinematic and found footage techniques. As a lover of film in all its forms, I typically enjoy either or, but a mockumentary has the potential to deliver the immersive qualities of found footage with camerawork comparable to a cinematic feature. On that basis, the mockumentary really represents the best of both worlds.
Lesley Manning nailed the style with the 1992 film Ghostwatch, and Ti West made great use of the technique with his 2013 chiller The Sacrament. Each of these pictures is immersive, yet both feature less of the shaky camerawork likely to give sensitive viewers motion sickness.
Late Night With the Devil counts as yet another noteworthy implementation of the mock doc style. If you’ve yet to take this one in, there’s no time like the present. The film is now available to stream on Hulu!
What’s the setup for Late Night With the Devil?
In 1977, Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian), the host of a failing late-night show, decides to film a Halloween special. However, the broadcast takes a dark turn, unleashing evil into the nation’s living rooms.
Late Night With the Devil made waves with both critics and movie lovers when it bowed in 2024. Many connected with the feature’s unpredictable nature and with David Dastmalchian’s show-stopping turn as lead character Jack Delroy.
Dread Central’s Drew Tinnin caught the film when it premiered out of SXSW in 2023 and spoke favorably of it. He rated the picture 4/5 stars and praised it as one of the standout efforts of the festival that year.
In the summary from his critique, Tinnin says: “Late Night With the Devil takes America’s fascination with the occult and turns it against them in a glorious spectacle of demonic mayhem.”
I think Drew sums it up pretty darned well with that statement. This is definitely one you’ll want to check out. If you haven’t already taken in Late Night With the Devil, you can do exactly that on Hulu now.
It’s noteworthy that the SXSW standout faced backlash over its revealed usage of AI. It was one of the first major film releases to have been hit with a controversy surrounding the use of generative artificial intelligence, leading some fans and visual artists the boycott its release. Learn more about that here.
That just about wraps up this broadcast, dear reader. Make sure to stay tuned to Dread Central in the very near future for more streaming-related updates. If you fancy the idea of keeping up with my comings and goings between now and then, you can always find me musing about movies and TV on Threads. I am active on the platform as @FunWithHorror.
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