Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) - Review
Originally published February 2019"Critique is so limiting and emotionally draining," is what the impressed and astonished art critic, Morf Vandewalt, mutters as he stares (into the camera) at a painting, 30 minutes into Velvet Buzzsaw, the Netflix-branded horror movie about mysterious and murderous artwork. I'm not sure whether I agree with his statement, or not. What I do know is that statements filled with pompous false eloquence, like this one, are in no short supply in this movie. There are a lot of different things one could say about Velvet Buzzsaw, both good and bad, as it has a lot to offer a very specific audience and very little to offer the rest of us.
Perhaps that statement seems a bit redundant since it is a horror film and horror is already something of a niche genre. However, the horror aspect of Velvet Buzzsaw is not what makes it stand out. In fact, it's everything around the horror that makes the movie worth watching. As for the horror itself, however...
Image: Netflix
Pros
Jake Gyllenhaal is great, as is his character
Supporting cast is well-acted and full of funny jerks who deserve what's coming to them
Dialect of the artists, agents, and art critics is well-researched (I have it on good authority that this is true)
Some dedication to making the whole culture surrounding art in the high-class atmosphere of the LA art world more convincing
Cons
Visual effects do not look good. At. All.
Most of the horror setups and executions are pretty lame or uninspired
Disjointed pacing
Failure to capitalize on mystery
Plot & Thoughts
Morf Vandewalt (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the premiere art critic known for his scathing and, occasionally, endorsing reviews of high-class art in Los Angeles. His friend, Josephina (Zawe Ashton), is having a rough time at her work and in her personal life but things are about to turn around. A man in her apartment building has died. This, obviously, doesn't seem great at first, but her curiosity leads her to investigate a little further and, before you know it, she's sneaking her way into his apartment. The man had requested in his will that all his possessions, aside from his cat, be destroyed after his death. However, upon seeing what those possessions were, Josephina had a different idea.
Image: Netflix
It turns out the guy was an artist, and apparently a visionary one at that, but no one has ever heard of him. Josephina seizes the opportunity, steals all the art, and goes into business with her former boss as a partner to produce, sell, and showcase the artwork in galleries. Josephina's discovery and quick thinking are sure to make her a millionaire. If only there wasn't a small catch to it all.
Everyone who sees the art is mesmerized by its quality and brilliance in an almost obsessive fashion, but rather than doing the typical HP Lovecraft approach of making everyone who gazes upon it go insane, the art has a different horrific quality to it. It starts making the environment around it lethal. Though, the rules about how this works are not very clear. In fact, it just sort of works when and how it wants to work and when it's convenient for the plot. It's all pretty contrived and requires that you suspend your disbelief so that you can enjoy the disastrous ends that everyone faces. Except, the moments in which all the terrible people are getting their just deserts are pretty uninspired. The deaths look bad due to the poor visual effects or they're just lame and uninventive.
Image: Netflix
That isn't to say there isn't a little psychological horror on the part of Mort's story, as he slowly uncovers a bit more about the artist and the artwork in his research for the book he's writing. It's a good setup for the reason why Morf would be the one to uncover more about the artist's past and the art's dark side, and it has a lot of potential to lead somewhere interesting. That side story doesn't really go too far, though, as the movie ends before anything revelatory or true is shared. No lesson is really learned and the movie just ends. It's somewhat unsatisfying, but I can appreciate that the film doesn't bog itself down with details trying to explain everything, as I'm fairly certain it would have made the whole experience feel a lot longer and more absurd, especially considering their horror writing wasn't very good. The rest of the writing, however, saves a fair amount of the experience.
Velvet Buzzsaw's biggest strength is that the dialogue has nothing to do with the horror and the talent of the actors involved. Toni Collette, Rene Russo, John Malkovich, and several others round out the supporting cast of artists, agents, and associates who all do their best egotistical Los Angeles-prick performance. The dialogue among everyone is hilarious to listen to as every person shows how pretentious and disgustingly self-absorbed everyone in that world is, making them seem very deserving of their impending deaths. They all have so much to say to each other in the most knowingly arrogant and vicious nature, and they all have such smug attitudes about what everyone else owes them.
Image: Netflix
It's delectable and funny if you get a kick out of listening to emotional, vapid fools talking to one another in a convincing fashion. The horror may not be well written, nor the mystery, but the dialogue and characters are. I will close with an example. In a scene towards the end in which Morf is sweating with fear and teary-eyed, he gives an explanation of what he thinks is happening with the art, yet, he still can't bring himself to explain it in layman's terms. He has to use verbose and flagrant language: "It has been revealed to me that there is some sort of larger power, some entity invested in our endeavor...In the violation of inviolate rules." Fantastically stupid; I love it.
TL;DR (Conclusion)
Velvet Buzzsaw is not a good movie. In fact, I think it's quite bad. It fails to be a horror movie with any real style, substance, or originality. When Velvet Buzzsaw is at its best, it's when it's doing anything but horror. In some ways, I could do a Fair or Foul review of it, due to how polarizingly effective the movie is at being either entertaining or boring. That being said, had this been just a drama about vain, pathetic art snobs interacting with one another, I might not have been intrigued enough to even watch it. However, with the quality of the writing around the characters and their dialogue, and with the quality of the cast's performances, it would have undoubtedly been a better movie if there was no poorly conceived horror subplot to get in the way.
Image: Netflix
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