Three years before he gave us the best Star Wars ever with Andor writer/director Dan Gilroystalked the secluded, shadowy streets of horror cinema with Velvet Buzzsaw.

Netflix

Set in the world of high-end art Velvet Buzzsaw is populated with artists, buyers, critics, and agents, very few who are in any meaning of the word admirable people. Morf Vandewalt (Jake Gyllenhaal) is an insufferable, pretentious critic hiding behind a shield of ‘truth’ to remain unconcerned with the lives he casually destroys. Ruthless and amoral galley owner Rhodora Haze (Rene Russo) has abandoned art and her days as a punk rocker for commerce and profit. It is Rhodora’s protege Josephina (Zawe Ashton) that sets the plot and nearly everyone’s doom into motion when she discovers the masterful and disturbing art of her now deceased neighbor Vetril Dease. Ignoring the man’s last wishes that all of his art be destroyed upon his death and Stealing nearly a thousand pieces from Dease’s apartment Josephine and Rhodora exploit their ‘find’ launching a new, exclusive, and very expensive artist into the stratospheric heights of the art world. It is not long before those who have transgressed against Dease’s art or even art in general find that curse locked within Dease’s creations from his troubled and unbalanced mind stalks them to their doom.

Velvet Buzzsaw is not horror of the grotesque. It is not horror of sudden violence and gruesome deaths. This film is horror of the uncanny. The film is a slow burn, treading carefully from the bright artificial world of Los Angeles into a world ruled by incomprehensible forces and terrible retribution. A dark horrific satire, but by no means a comedy, this film passes judgement on those that abuse art with cynicism and profit. It is not by chance that the characters that survive the film have all in their own manner rejected the lifeless selling of art for the more honest living of life for art.

This also made a perfect companion piece to go with Pickman’s Model. Not only are both stories about artists and what they see with their eye, but Velvet Buzzsaw has a distinctly Lovecraftian vibe as Morf slowly uncovers the history and horror of Dease’s life and the trauma that propelled his art.

Velvet Buzzsaw is not for everyone. The characters, for the most part are thoroughly unlikable, but I found them interesting. This is not a horror movie with some splatter kill every ten minutes to wake up a jaded audience and it requires your attention, but for those who this is their jam Velvet Buzzsaw will bury itself in your mind.

Velvet Buzzsaw streams on Netflix.