A Netflix viewing on April 14th.
When I saw that Dan Gilroy wrote and directed this supernatural horror picture, I wanted to see it since I am a fan of Nightcrawler. Set in the contemporary art world of Los Angeles (therefore ensuring that some characters will be reviled for being uber-snooty) we get a an interesting group of characters:
- Morf (Jake Gyllenhaal): Art critic.
- Rhodora (Rene Russo): Snooty gallery owner.
- Josephina (Zawe Ashton): Rhodora's minion, who gets sh*t on by Rhodora.
- Gretchen (Toni Collette): Art Curator and rival to Rhodora.
- Coco (Natalia Dyer): Another minion for Rhodora who gets sh*t on a lot.
- Jon Dondon (Tom Sturridge): Art gallery owner and another Rhodora rival.
Josephina is stuck in a dead end job working for Rhodora. She's under appreciated until she discovers some paintings of a dead neighbor in her apartment complex, Vetril Dease. The paintings put the hook into Josephina and she shows the to Morf, whom she's now in a sexual relationship with, and Rhodora. Rhodora puts the Dease pieces on display and they're an instant hit. That's when weird sh*t starts to happen.
Rhodora sends some paintings into storage but her employee goes missing, he actually succumbs to a gruesome death. Morf starts to research Dease and discovers that his history is disturbing. Really disturbing. Rival owner Jon Dondon is also researching Dease in order to spoil Rhodora's new found success. Gretchen, a curator for the city gallery gets some Dease pieces to display. Morf also starts to descend into madness from the research into Dease's life. Morf tires to get everyone to destroy the paintings but because there's so much money involved now, no one listens.
Basically everyone suffers a gruesome death at the hands of Dease's pieces except for Rhodora and Coco. Rhodora gets a special death from Dease courtesy of her Velvet Buzzsaw tattoo, a band she belonged to back in the 80's. Coco is the only survivor and she sees a homeless man selling Dease's works.
Apparently I am not a big fan of supernatural artwork murdering people that I don't care for. I really wanted to like this movie but was disappointed. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the summary. This was such a departure from Nightcrawler and it didn't work. It's unknown to me if this could have worked on any level. If Gilroy had eliminated the supernatural aspect, could it have been better? Granted I am a stalk and slash horror film guy as I grew up on Halloween and the Friday the 13th films, mainly 1-5.
This should have been a better film. Gilroy is talented and there was a great ensemble cast. But it just didn't work for me. The film received a 63% Rotten Tomatoes rating and that seemed a bit high for me. Skip it.
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