Given his status as one of the most popular, iconic, and legendary creative minds the genre has ever seen across any and all mediums, it’s definitely worth paying attention when Stephen King heartily recommends a horror project.
The master of the macabre’s latest suggestion – at least for when it’s made widely available to us mere mortals – is Late Night with the Devil, an under-the-radar combination of mockumentary, narrative, and found footage feature that took the recent South by Southwest film festival by storm when it screened.
Co-written and directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes, the always-reliable David Dastmalchian stars as Jack Delroy, host of the late-night talk show Night Owls. Set during 1977, the small screen personality finds that his ratings are dwindling, leaving him increasingly desperate for a boost with sweeps incoming.
Seemingly scraping the barrel, he orchestrates a Halloween special involving a magician, a skeptic, and someone claiming demonic possession. It sounds like the lead-in to a bad joke, but based on the fact Late Night with the Devil currently holds a perfect 100 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes without a single negative review to be found, it’s clearly anything but.
King says it might not be for everyone, which seems a little strange when it’s boasting an impeccable score on the aforementioned aggregation site, but a ringing endorsement from one of the sultans of scary is easily going to be more than enough to convince those on the fence that Late Night with the Devil is going to be a must-see.