This film is presented in a very unique way, as a late night broadcast TV show, told in realtime, with a few behind the scene style shots. The cinematography is grainy and flickers, there is a nostalgic 70s style atmosphere to everything, and David Dastmalchian is able to easily embody the slick and smooth late night talk show host. Honestly, the direction is pretty strong, and I found most of this movie to be fairly engaging as I became engrossed in the actual talk show. The tension is built slowly as you know things are going to go wrong, but there is no outright jumpscares, just a building of atmosphere. I also was fairly invested in learning the backstory of Jack Delroy, as the movie keeps building up to what feels like will be a big reveal. However, the ending of the movie was fairly disappointing. It's abrupt, a bit too surreal compared to how grounded most of the rest of the movie is, and does not resolve most of the arcs in any satisfying way. I was hoping everything would click into place, but a lot of questions are left unanswered, leaving me feeling frustrated and confused and almost ruining the entire movie for me to be honest. I want to reconcile the strong first 80% of the movie with the ending, but I feel like since so much of it is build-up, and the payoff is not satisfactory, I can't actually give this a higher score. I do think the directors are strong, and I hope they focus a bit more on making everything land in their next movie.
Review by RG9400VIP 5BlockedParent2024-03-23T02:47:05Z
This film is presented in a very unique way, as a late night broadcast TV show, told in realtime, with a few behind the scene style shots. The cinematography is grainy and flickers, there is a nostalgic 70s style atmosphere to everything, and David Dastmalchian is able to easily embody the slick and smooth late night talk show host. Honestly, the direction is pretty strong, and I found most of this movie to be fairly engaging as I became engrossed in the actual talk show. The tension is built slowly as you know things are going to go wrong, but there is no outright jumpscares, just a building of atmosphere. I also was fairly invested in learning the backstory of Jack Delroy, as the movie keeps building up to what feels like will be a big reveal. However, the ending of the movie was fairly disappointing. It's abrupt, a bit too surreal compared to how grounded most of the rest of the movie is, and does not resolve most of the arcs in any satisfying way. I was hoping everything would click into place, but a lot of questions are left unanswered, leaving me feeling frustrated and confused and almost ruining the entire movie for me to be honest. I want to reconcile the strong first 80% of the movie with the ending, but I feel like since so much of it is build-up, and the payoff is not satisfactory, I can't actually give this a higher score. I do think the directors are strong, and I hope they focus a bit more on making everything land in their next movie.