A precocious art-horror premise with a few decent chills & nimble critique of the sold-out pomp and circumstance of the modern art scene that devolves into a snail-slow, contrived, stunningly unfocused mess of narrative splatters. 3.2/10.

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Plot Synopsis: After paintings by an unknown artist are discovered, a supernatural force enacts revenge on those who have allowed their greed to get in the way of art.

*Possible spoilers ahead*

Review

A precocious art-horror premise with a few decent chills & nimble critique of the sold-out pomp and circumstance of the modern art scene that devolves into a snail-slow, stunningly unfocused mess of narrative splatters without any unified form or existential reasoning. I’ll admit, I was intrigued by the idea: a drama-horror art film where the art becomes an avant-garde slasher hellbent on teaching pretentious art dealers and the middle-men pimping the once beautiful and authentic medium, a lesson or two on humility and respect.

But, that’s not what we got. A precocious art-horror premise with a few decent chills & nimble critique of the sold-out pomp and circumstance of the modern art scene, Velvet Buzzsaw devolves into a snail-slow, stunningly unfocused mess of narrative splatters. I’m starting to think Netflix only plays warm-ups (and maybe the first quarter) while ducking out to the parking lot for the rest of the game because their original content looks great on paper and smart advertisements draw you in, but oftentimes leads to shallow and messy products, like someone throwing a few paint splatters on an empty canvas and trying to convince people it’s Van Gogh.

Seriously, the pacing is absurdly, mind-numbingly slow and direction/narrative so unfocused and uninspired it cannot get past its own identity crisis defining just what it’s trying to be: horror/slasher, romance drama, art critique doc,.. It does paint well the shallowness and self-important cognitive dissonance of the people not doing any creating/art themselves and profiting off other people’s work without an original thought or contribution of their own besides superficiality, and concludes with some decent (although incredibly stock/generic) slasher tropes like Hoboman.

The rest of the film, however, is quite frankly a dissonant, confused mess with no panache or sense of identiy, explanation of who Dease even was or why any of this is happening, or smart utilization of Gyllenhall’s trying performance reducing his screentime to miniscule and (maddeningly) near-inconsequential (instead choosing to follow an *unbearably* annoying dillettante in Josepina).

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Conclusion

All in all, Velvet Buzzsaw is extremely disappointing and squanders an impressive set of resources and remarkably easy (smart on paper) idea to profit from in a whole lot of unfocused narrative nonsense with little to no point, explanation, or fulfillment. A precocious art-horror premise with a few decent chills & nimble critique of the sold-out pomp and circumstance of the modern art scene devolves into a snail-slow, stunningly unfocused mess of narrative splatters even worse considering Dan Gilroy’s fall from grace after masterwork pieces like Nightcrawler.

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