Before talking about Velvet Buzzsaw, I’d like to say first that I absolutely loved Dan Gilroy’s 2014 movie Nightcrawler. It winded up being one of my favorite movies of 2014, and so I was really excited to see Dan Gilroy make a new movie bringing stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo back together for a new movie. That movie is Velvet Buzzsaw, a movie released exclusively for Netflix with a bit of an abstract horror twist. I had high hopes for this movie, but unfortunately it winds up being a bit of a mixed bag.

For what it’s worth, I think the concept of Velvet Buzzsaw is absolutely brilliant. A dead artist’s works are discovered, and art critics rave over how good they are. However, the artist never wanted to publish his art, and so the people in the art world are now profiting from art that was never intended to see the light of day. From here, supernatural forces allow the artist to kill those that are profiting from his works. He’s able to do this by killing them with art. I’m always a huge fan of horror movies that take simple everyday objects and put a killer spin on them, so Velvet Buzzsaw was able to make us afraid of art, which is something that I haven’t seen done before. It’s quite a brilliant idea, and when the movie leans into this it’s pretty cool.

I think my biggest problem with Velvet Buzzsaw is the tonal inconsistency in it. Sometimes the movie is trying to go for a critique on the art world and critics in general, while other times it’s just trying to be a slasher film. I felt like I was watching two different movies edited together, and while neither concept is particularly bad, it just never felt like it meshed well together for me. I definitely preferred the times where the movie leaned into its slasher roots, but that’s mainly because of my aforementioned compliment about how I thought the concept of art killing people was really neat.

I will definitely say that the acting is top-notch here. Jake Gyllenhaal has always been one of my favorite actors (with Donnie Darko being my favorite movie of all time), and he delivers another solid and nuanced performance here. So does everyone else, but there’s an unfortunate downside to all of this. No one in the movie is likeable (although I realize that’s kind of the point), and so it makes it difficult to latch on to anyone or root for them in any real way.

Honestly, one of my favorite things about the movie is just its aesthetic. There are many times where Velvet Buzzsaw looks as pretty as the paintings it’s displaying. In particular, when the art comes to life it looks incredible. If you’ve seen the trailer or pictures of the movie then you’ve probably seen at least one of these instances, but this was one of the many reasons why I looked forward to the death scenes. The paintings and displays look so cool when they come to life, and for me that made the rest of it worth it. The movie plays with that old idea of “if you stare at a painting long enough, it starts to look like it’s moving” in a really fun way.

Usually when I watch a movie, I have a pretty good handle on how I feel about it long before the movie is even over. A movie can surprise me in the end, sure, but I usually have my feelings pretty locked in before the credits hit. With Velvet Buzzsaw, though, I didn’t know how I felt about the movie for a long while after I finished watching it. There were times where the movie was fascinating to me, and other times where it bored me out of my skull, and sometimes these moments would happen within the same scene. I’ll definitely say that it’s a unique experience, but it make for a confusing watch. There are things to love and things to hate, and so because of that I feel like I land somewhere in the middle with Velvet Buzzsaw. Definitely give it a shot if it interests you, since the movie can be very divisive, so my opinion might not necessary reflect yours here. I was hoping for something better here, but I definitely don’t regret watching it either.

3/5