Velvet Buzzshaw: A satire on the Art industry, a dark comedy, a Horror Film. Velvet Buzzshaw was the name of a punk Band, it's lead singer Rhodora Haze (Rene Russo) now runs the Haze Gallery and has a buzzsaw tattoo on the back of her neck. She really is channelling Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada. Her put upon assistant Josephina (Zawe Ashton) discovers a cache of paintings by a dead outsider artist, Vetril Dease. Along with Haze she decides to profit from the paintings. Josephina's boyfriend Morf (Jake Gyllenhaal) is an art critic who delights in destroying reputations but is fascinated with Dease and decides to research his life. His interest though pales in comparison with the way artist Piers (John Malkovich) becomes obsessed with Deases's art.
The backstabbing, gossiping everyday life of the Art World is brilliantly displayed by the bitchy Gretchen (Toni Collette) who delights in breaking up relationships by revealing tales of infidelities. But as things take a supernatural turn everyone in this pocket universe is at risk. The pictures painted by Dease seem somehow cursed or haunted causing other art works to come to life in lethal manners. Monkeys animate and pull a man into a painting, colours flow and kill. Coco (Natalia Dyer) is a peripatetic art assistant, she has a darkly comic roles as she moves from boss to boss and they perish in the most artful ways and the definition of work of art is rather flexible.
While this is a satire and a comedy the horror is very real and some scenes are not for the squeamish or faint hearted. Director and screenwriter Dan Gilroy delivers an enjoyable and funny horror treat. 8/10. On Netflix.