AI with the Devil (no.9)
or: when a horror movie has a crisis of ethics
Don’t adjust your PC/tablet for this Monday morning Rent’s Due! I’m currently writing this on my phone via Safari because the Substack app apparently has no writing dashboard, so apologies if there’s any formatting issues. For now, enjoy this not-so held back rant and send a couple bones my way if you feel so inclined. Thanks and much love. Save the footnotes till the end 🫶.
If you’re like me, someone’s who either chronically too online in film discourse or likes horror movies more than spending time with their family, you’ve probably heard about the shitstorm surrounding the use of artificial intelligence in Late Night with the Devil. Maybe more of a shit rain shower depending on how you view an indie horror movie starring David Dastmalchian, but a situation involving metaphorical poopy nonetheless.
To catch any normies up to speed: it was discovered that the directors of the film, Cameron and Colin Cairnes, made three insert shots with generative AI that appear throughout the film’s interstitials.1 They had a Variety article released the past week explaining their actions, saying that the images were further edited years ago before the strikes, when AI was seen as less of a heroin needle for VCs and more as a neat new tool to use for fun. If you were anywhere on social media during this, you’d know that this revelation spiraled into another mass debate re:machine learning in the industry, with Twitter Artists calling for a boycott of all things and Cine-Chuds swooping in to condone hurting the little indie that could because of whatever the fuck.
For me, as someone who’s been affected by AI in my professional life, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t stuck between both sides on the issue, despite how obnoxious most voices sounded. I was excited to watch Late Night before the drama started, and the AI shots that I saw in the trailer were definitely a shitty thing to find out about a film with an interesting premise. But, I still thought it was worth watching at least to have an informed opinion in this aforementioned shit puddle. I was conflicted walking into my screening of the film, and now, after having put in the effort in seeing what the fuss was all about, I’m still conflicted and a little baffled at everyone involved in the making of this film.
Life is a ‘Family Guy’ bit fr
I’ll get this out of the way now before anyone starts assuming shit: the film’s really fucking good!
Late Night with the Devil is a genuinely unique midnight film experience, that gives a much-needed spotlight on underseen character actors (Dastmalchian, Ian Blis, and Rhys Auteri especially). It’s presented as a recently-discovered tape of a talk show gone wrong that mostly sticks to the aesthetic; a look that feels right at home with other shows from the Carson era of late night TV, but with demons and brain hemorrhages.
But I say “mostly” from a point of subjective iffyness, because yeah the AI art did take me out of my enjoyment with the film. I should also mention that I saw this in a packed house for a Friday afternoon, likely filled with people who didn’t notice those insert shots or just didn’t care. But I’ll tell you something that threw all of us off in the theater: the seemingly nonstop barrage of production companies that appeared before the movie actually started. It must’ve lasted less than two minutes, but we were all laughing because we had no fucking clue when we were actually about to see this thing. I’d finally lived through my own Family Guy bit, which oddly enough made me seriously consider a few things about this film’s controversy.
According to their Wikipedia, Late Night with the Devil had the financial backing of *at least* six production companies (Image Nation Abu Dhabi, VicScreen, AGC Studios, Good Fiend Films, Future Pictures, and Spooky Pictures), technically eight if you’re counting IFC Films and Shudder for distribution. It felt like more when I watched it, but I digress. Now seeing a bunch of companies be involved in an indie like this isn’t something new in the slightest. Given its small budget and release window (it just a wider theatrical rollout less than a week ago), it’s also safe to assume that the financial return for this wasn’t going to be a huge priority for them.2 But here’s the thing that boggles my fucking mind here: if there were so many hands involved in the making of this picture, why wouldn’t anyone speak up about there being AI in it before the word got out?
Maybe I already answered my own question here that the film was not a big deal for these producers, but if you were releasing a film that had AI art at a time when the industry went through more than 100 days of work stoppage in protest of that,3 wouldn’t you have wanted to nip the bud before it had a chance to grow? That’s what’s so funny about this discourse to me. Late Night with the Devil is a great movie, but it’s a film made by people that are going to have this weird chip on their shoulder that they never needed in the first place. I’m not saying that it’s bad to experiment with AI when you’re working before and during your production, bc if you want to experiment with weird tech shit, no one should stop you from doing so. But if you already have an art team that can clearly make great work, and you’ve got Shudder, IFC, and motherfucking ABU DHABI money????, you might still be an indie darling, but you’re an indie darling that can spend a lil’ cash to hire an artist to make real interstitials4 and save yourself the headache of being vilified. The Cairnes shot themselves in the foot (feet?) before their movie could play everywhere, and it could’ve been easily avoided.
I fucking hate robots (levelheaded-ly)
To me, I see AI as a tool or curiosity, but never as a solution. I think there’s things in generative content that are entertaining, like a funny song cover or macabre Spongebob sims. But the difference between those things and something like Late Night with the Devil5 is that silly shit is free for me to watch on the internet. Agree with me or not, I think it’s a little stupid that I had to spend money on a work of art that *I know* wasn’t entirely made by people. I felt that when I read issues of fucking Batman, and I’ll always feel that for things that could’ve been done better by actual people. You think people on Substack or Beehiiv want to pay a bot to tell them about fake Oscar awards?? AI’s influence on art and culture isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but if you’re going to use AI for whatever purpose, it better not be at the expense of people’s hard earned cash, because what’s the point in showing up in the first place?
Filmmakers are going to experiment with anything that’s free or new or interesting to use. That’s been the reality for all sorts of creators forever. To reiterate: I don’t think it’s a bad thing to play with AI to visualize things, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of people who are trained to visualize things for you. It’ll cost money, but everything does in the end so why the fuck would I have to mention that? You might as well give your money to competent people. As for Late Night with the Devil, I would only rewatch it or recommend it to others if someone with power is able to replace those AI images with real art, bc yeah idc it’s not that fucking hard. I could do it with a cam rip and Premiere Pro right now if I wanted to. If you’re still on the fence of watching it, go watch it if you’re still interested, or see Immaculate which is also playing in theaters and is also good.
To dollop this shit-shake with a nice swirl on top, it’s important to talk about these things because it reminds people of how important it is to make art in the first place. The more I work in writing and film, the more I appreciate the real human sweat put into it; that love, admittedly, is more noticeable when you’re working in film. There is something commendable about a group of people giving their all into making a film, so when something like AI is constantly tempting people’s incentives to produce things faster and cheaper, it makes us worried that more stupid people will see our commendable work and disregard it. Granted, our jobs are thankless, but we don’t do it for praise. Unlike a program, we make art because we actually WANT to do it. To rob people of that opportunity to create is about as worse as giving your soul to the devil. Idk, maybe there’s something catchier to end this on that isn’t too on the nose. I’ll write one later.
Couldn’t find a good spot in the article to mention that not all of the interstitials appear to be AI-generated, which if I’m right makes this whole thing funnier because why aren’t they visually consistent lmfao.
This was the biggest opening weekend for IFC Films though, so good for them ig. Anyone who thought this was going to make bigger bucks competing against Kung Fu Panda 4, Dune 2 and another Ghostbusters movie is insane tho.
Amongst other things, yes, but it’s hard to fit all those details in a run-on sentence.
Someone was trending the other day for replying to a tweet about the news with their own mockup of the skeleton interstitial, which admittedly looks way better than the one in the film. And they did it for free! I’m not saying that IFC or Shudder should hire them on the spot but c’mon this shit isn’t rocket science.
Or Secret Invasion. Or True Detective: Night Country. It’s a slippery slope if we let *anyone* get away with cheap shit.