Review of Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) by Kenmei — 03 Feb 2019

This was a boring slog through a movie that's both very self-aware but also wants you to take itself very seriously. Velvet Buzzsaw fails at being both a Horror movie or a major critique of the world of Art itself.

The biggest thing I felt was the problem though was that the movie never really grabbed hold of what it was supposed to be and went with it. The story itself is absolutely terrible. The "horror" aspects of the film are so poorly explained and flimsy they actually had to write in a scene halfway through the movie where Gyllenhaal has to explain what, exactly, the characters should be terrified of, point by point.

The scene comes out of nowhere with barely any exploration of what is truly going on and his character has just suddenly "done the research" off camera and knows what is happening. The fact that all of these characters are extremely unlikeable almost made me want to root for the monster or being or whatever that was killing them.

The other half of the movie is, what I would guess since I have no knowledge of the art world, a brutal critique on how artists are handled and how one reviewer, in this case Jake Gyllenhaal, can make or break their career so be careful not to get on their bad side.

The writers seemed more interested in seeing if they could fit every art buzzword they could possibly find into the script then actually making one that was coherent enough to really follow. Even the fairly recognizable cast couldn't prop up what is just a truly bad script.

And even when the movie sets up a couple of different twists the plot could have gone down, they are completely forgotten or actually made into what kinda becomes a running joke. It feels like this was meant to be a straight up drama about the Art industry until, at the last minute, someone decided that would be boring so make it into a Horror movie! It feels unevenly mashed together, like a square peg in a round hole, and nothing ever seems to come off as even a remotely good idea here.

I'd recommend skipping this. As a movie that tries to be a Horror movie and send a message, it does neither very good whatsoever.