‘Velvet Buzzsaw’ Trailer: Jake Gyllenhaal Reteams With ‘Nightcrawler’ Director Dan Gilroy For A Literal Arthouse Horror
Five years ago we saw how truly weird and darkJake Gyllenhaalcould get when he teamed up with writer-directorDan Gilroyfor the twisted 2014 thrillerNightcrawler, which gave a thought-provoking condemnation of the ambulance-chasing tabloid industry.
Now, Gyllenhaal, Gilroy, andNightcrawlerco-starRene Russoreunite for what looks to be a darkly satirical indictment of yet another niche field: the contemporary art world.Velvet Buzzsawis a horror-thriller starring Gyllenhaal as a pretentious art critic who soon becomes targeted by killer art pieces. Yes, you read that right. See the firstVelvet Buzzsawtrailer below.
Velvet Buzzsaw Trailer
“Critique is so limiting and emotionally draining.” To critique this trailer wouldn’t do justice to how truly bizarre and gonzo it is — nothing less from the team behind the completely unnervingNightcrawler. Gilroy’s new horror-thriller film centers around an art gallery that unearths a series of paintings by an unknown artist that, by some supernatural force, start to come to life and kill people. While the film is an ensemble cast rounded out byToni Collette, Zawe Ashton, Tom Sturridge, Natalia Dyer, Daveed Diggs, Billy Magnussen,andJohn Malkovich, Gyllenhaal is the clear star, giving what looks to be another dedicated performance as a pretentious art critic who soon realizes there is something very wrong with the paintings.
Gilroy describedVelvet Buzzsawas “a satirical thriller set in the big-money art world of L.A.” toVanity Fair. The mind-bending film pushes his opinion that the art world has become too money-obsessed — something that becomes a pivotal plot point inVelvet Buzzsaw, as the art targets greedy art collectors. It reminds me of the surreal Swedish 2017 dramaThe Square, except with killer art.
“Contemporary art really began as a movement to provoke and challenge,” said Gilroy. “And it now has been completely co-opted by big money and business. And it’s a world that’s off its axis. It’s a world that’s in conflict with itself which, for me, is the perfect setting for a film—a world that has that much inherent dramatic potential.”
Here is the official synopsis forVelvet Buzzsaw:
In the cutthroat world of fine-art trading and representation, up-and-coming agent Josephina (Zawe Ashton) stumbles across a secret weapon: hundreds of dazzling paintings left behind after an elderly tenant in her building dies. Ignoring the instructions the clandestine artist left to destroy his work, she promptly starts circulating the paintings, which soon attract the attention of the heavy hitters around her—including her boss Rhodora (Rene Russo), art critic (and Josephina’s sometime lover) Morf (Jake Gyllenhaal), and competing collectors, managers, and curators like Bryson (Billy Magnussen) and Gretchen (Toni Collette). Yet as the deceased artist’s portraits gain posthumous acclaim, they also awaken something imperceptible and sinister that threatens to punish those who have profited from his work.
Velvet Buzzsawmakes its world premiere at Sundance before it hits Netflix onFebruary 1, 2019.
