Random Netflix Reviews - Velvet Buzzsaw

Fans of horror movies and psychological thrillers might have noticed Netflix hyping one of their latest original features, Velvet Buzzsaw, which debuted at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Netflix’s promotional clip for the film was brooding and loaded with ominous portent. Yet the few scary scenes of murder and supernatural brutality are mostly included in the two-minute teaser, and all you’re missing out on is the plodding pacing and unlikeable characters.

While Velvet Buzzsaw does have enough star power to create a compelling film – Jake Gyllenhaal stands out, as does an underutilized John Malkovich – the characters aren’t properly fleshed out and so the interactions between one another seem as jarring as the film’s uneven pace.

It starts by introducing Morf, an art critic portrayed by Gyllenhaal, and follows him at an art show as he interacts with the other personalities in this small and elite circle of creators, collectors and competitors as a way of introduction. Along the way Morf is given some of the best lines as he unironically soliloquizes what it is that defines art; other characters converse of danger and ambition, desire and calling.

The personalities all seem larger than life but are really just cookies cut from the shape. Each is decidedly self-serving and is in it to boost influence and reputation, so audience members are forgiven for not caring much when they start dropping dead – which happens much later. The movie brands itself as satire, and has some stand-out lines, but these are too few and far between. Most of the time it’s hard not to associate the snobbery of the movie’s characters with those responsible for producing it.

It takes far too long to introduce the paintings of the film’s mysterious artist, Diese, who dies suddenly with instructions that all his work be destroyed. Yet Josephina (Zawe Ashton) lives in the building and sees an opportunity to make her mark, and so takes the paintings despite the moral dilemma posed. Soon the paintings are in the galleries and selling like mad, and the bodies start to drop.

These mysterious deaths are uninteresting and unimaginative though, and could have been predicted even if most hadn’t been given away already to anyone who watched the preview. If the movie deserves any praise, it would be for its visuals (the works by Diese are particularly foreboding) and for its acting. All involved become their characters quite convincingly, yet it’s their interactions with each other that feel stilted and unnatural.

There isn’t enough humour or horror for Velvet Buzzsaw to be seriously considered either, which relegates it to the (slow-moving) drama category. And while a bad horror movie can have a certain charm, a bad drama cannot. Most of the time it seems to be much more pretense than parody, and takes itself far too seriously to fulfil the cheesy horror movie that lies within.