Velvet Buzzsaw

Sure, there are some pretty good, gritty scenes in Velvet Buzzsaw, but that’s not enough. There could have been more here because all they had to do was leave out all those uninteresting scenes where nothing happens. The film basically had only one scene that I liked and grabbed my attention, and that was at the very end. You get the feeling that it's more of a joke that winks at the audience, even though it has its merits. Unfortunately, there is otherwise a lot of untapped potential in this film. (14/06/2019)

An absolute madness. At some moments, it gave off certain Picture of Dorian Grey vibes, which does the premise some good. As far as mysterious thrillers go, this one is definitely on the super weird side, which also confirms that Jake Gyllenhaal will probably keep playing weirdoes until the day he dies, as he’s been the best at that since childhood. This film is no different, but despite the general wildness, it kept my attention until the very end. The ending itself, however, is a bit anticlimactic. (29/04/2020)

Dan Gilroy, the director of the thriller Nightcrawler, delivers an original and well-acted horror film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, John Malkovich, and Toni Collette, but unfortunately it is empty, cold, rather uninteresting and not very engaging. Art, galleries, paintings are not my thing and horror-wise I think of untapped potential. Some of the gore, while creative, is not very brutal and certainly not shocking, it's very soft and light and that's a shame because the film could have been close to Final Destination. I didn't suffer outright, but it's a duller piece with weaker directorial and acting moments. 50% (07/02/2019)

“Don’t deal with art, especially art that doesn’t belong to you.” Of course, this was not supposed to be a full-blooded horror movie, but the wannabe dramatic death scenes do not work at all. They’re more like WTF. If you consider it a satire of the world of artists, art critics and art dealers, it is watchable; observing an interesting group of people is fun. But Velvet Buzzsaw doesn’t hit the bull’s eye even in this respect, unlike, for example, Altman’s The Player from behind the scenes of moviemaking. I’m sure Gilroy had greater ambitions for this project. (22/02/2019)

A cynical parody on murder stories, set in the decadent world of modern art. These picky, snobbish caricatures headed by Gyllenhaal die deserved deaths and it’s quite fun to watch. Gilroy isn’t making a horror here and doesn’t employ any cheap things to shock you, it’s just more of an unnerving movie. Perhaps he is making up for a trauma of childhood when he was told that he’ll never be an artist when he got an F in Art. I wouldn’t look for any deeper meaning here. (05/04/2021)