‘Late Night With The Devil' Breaks Streaming Service Record As Low-Budget Horror Finds Audience (No, It's Not Based On A True Story)

30/04/2024

Topline

The horror-only streaming service Shudder broke its record last weekend with the release of “Late Night With The Devil,” a relatively low-budget horror flick that became the largest acquisition ever for both the AMC Networks-owned niche streamer and AMC+ in its opening weekend.

‘late night with the devil' breaks streaming service record as low-budget horror finds audience (no, it's not based on a true story)

Ingrid Torelli, David Dastmalchian and Laura Gordon in “Late Night With The Devil.” Courtesy of IFC Films and Shudder

Key Facts

“Late Night With The Devil” dropped on Shudder on April 19, less than a month after its theatrical release when it became distributor IFC Films’ highest-grossing opening weekend ever with $2.8 million at the domestic box office.

The Australian flick was released in just 1,034 American theaters in the U.S. (still considered a wide release but significantly smaller than the 3,675 theaters last year’s “Five Nights At Freddy’s” debuted in, for example) and drew $7.3 million across its U.S. theatrical run.

The film beat “V/H/S/99” and “When Evil Lurks,” the previous record holders, to become the biggest opening weekend ever for both Shudder, the horror-only streaming service of AMC Networks launched in 2015, and AMC+.

Representatives for Shudder did not disclose how many views “Late Night With The Devil” drew in its opening weekend, and AMC no longer breaks out Shudder’s stand-alone subscriber numbers, but AMC Networks had a fairly small 11.4 million subscribers across its streaming platforms as of the end of 2023, a number that includes AMC+, Shudder and four other services.

The low-budget “Late Night With The Devil” is set in the 1970s and spent just $150,000 for visual effects, but its low spend and relatively tight filming schedule doesn’t seem to have hampered the movie’s reception—”Late Night” has an 97% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes to be the best-reviewed horror film of the year so far.

“Late Night With The Devil” premiered last year at the SXSW film festival and was immediately praised for “inventive,” “wonderfully creepy” and “devilishly funny.”

Crucial Quote

“I got a screener. It’s absolutely brilliant. I couldn’t take my eyes off it,” horror author Stephen King tweeted of the film. “Your results may vary, as they say, but I urge you to watch it when you can.”

Key Background

“Late Night with the Devil” tells the story of a fictional syndicated talk show called “Night Owls.” Desperate to turn ratings around, host Jack Delroy brings to set a self-proclaimed medium, a former magician and a girl who is said to be possessed for a special Halloween broadcast. On air, the girl conjures the demon that lives inside her and “unleashes evil into the living rooms of America,” the film’s description reads. The film is set as if the footage from the original 1977 broadcast had recently been rediscovered.

Surprising Fact

Search interest in the title has risen steadily over the last month, according to Google Trends, including searches around whether or not the film is based on a true story. While the movie draws inspiration from real aspects of 1970s pop culture—like the original “Exorcist” film and “The Don Lane Show,” which aired for nine seasons—it is entirely fiction.

Tangent

Cameron and Colin Cairnes, the brothers who wrote and directed the film, received some backlash after the movie was released for using art generated via artificial intelligence. The brothers issued a statement clarifying they did use AI to create three still images that were later edited and included in the film with the help of the on-set graphics and production design team. The use of AI to replace human artists, actors, musicians and more in film has been a hot-button topic for years and was a major sticking point in a months-long actors strike last year.