I don’t typically go for horror movies because I consider myself (with no derision) a bit of a coward. No, really. After all, I did run out of the theater while watching The Polar Express when I was eight, so it stands to reason that if I can’t take the vague threat of social disgrace, why on earth would I be able to handle mortal peril from supernatural forces? However, once in a blue moon, I do come across a horror movie that doesn’t so much frighten me as intrigue me, especially when it comes to considering what a horror movie is telling me I should be afraid of. One of those movies is Velvet Buzzsaw, a 2019 horror film that I thought had an interesting take on class that provided an eerily satisfying wish-fulfillment fantasy that I found relevant to the social media landscape of today.
Disclaimer: SPOILERS ahead, obviously, but the movie’s also two years old now, so, I don’t feel as bad about it.
Velvet Buzzsaw tells the story of a group of art curators, agents and critics in Los Angeles and their discovery of an incredible new artistic talent named Vetril Dease. The only catch is that Dease is inconveniently and recently deceased, and his final request is that all his work be destroyed. But, of course, the group who discovers this latent talent’s work disregards his wishes and immediately begins to capitalize on Dease’s paintings. They feature his work in galleries, bargain to have pieces placed in a museum, store away his work to rack up the prices on his paintings in the market, feature them in their own homes and write a book about Dease’s life and portfolio. All the while, the curators and critics are caught up in their own interconnected powerplays and manipulations, spurred on by the sudden notoriety and riches they receive from Dease’s paintings.
However, one by one, each of the group who used Dease’s work begins to die in strange and mysterious ways. The only ones who survive are a personal assistant, who took in Dease’s cat once he passed, and two other artists who removed themselves from the commercial art scene in L.A.
In the horror genre, works are meant to reflect the societal anxieties of any given time, which is why so much early sci-fi and gothic horror involve mad scientists and aristocratic monsters (I see you, Frankenstein and Dracula). These pieces were written within the context of massive social and technological upheaval, which, understandably, brought with them a lot of anxiety about class and the nature of science. But what, or who, then, is the monster in Velvet Buzzsaw, and what societal concern are they depicting?
In the movie, the characters are haunted, and eventually hunted down, by what we can assume is a vengeful spirit. Vetril Dease passed on, his last wishes weren’t respected, and thus he returned to wreak his vengeance on the living. But I don’t think Dease’s monstrous form is his most important trait – I think what’s most important is what he was before his death.
As the main characters begin to die, they uncover Dease’s story as the child of an abusive father who he later murders, a soldier, an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital and, eventually, an unknown artist who painted while he worked at various blue-collar jobs. So, who Dease is both before and after his death is the class opposite of the cohort who appropriates his work: They are rich, powerful and influential; he lived in a small, cluttered apartment and had little influence over his life and even less over his affairs after death. And yet, Dease returns, post-mortem, and his wishes cannot be denied when he does so.
If the deceased painter is the ‘monster’ in Velvet Buzzsaw, then I’d argue that the thing that the characters truly fear isn’t a ghost, but retribution and accountability from someone they wouldn’t have given a second thought to had they met him on the street. It’s partially why I found the tension of the film to be so interesting. In this case, as far as class goes, the ghost is more relatable than the other main characters (war, patricide and institutionalization aside), since the average viewer is more likely to identify with a struggling artist than the largely upper-class members of L.A.’s art scene. This point is portrayed multiple times throughout the film, as the upper echelon of the art world is shown to have houses and apartments that no average person could afford and attend galleries none of us would be allowed to enter. Yet despite their social power, Dease is still able to make them suffer for exploiting the art that came from his life’s pain.
It’s this angle that made me view Velvet Buzzsaw as a wish-fulfillment movie, because it offers a story where an average person is able to keep their autonomy and resist those who would normally be untouchable. Basically, in a destructively capitalistic art world, one artist is able to push back against the system once he leaves it. So, what societal anxiety might this reflect? On first glance, the film seems to depict the fear that those with power can and will strip away what little dignity and authenticity the common masses have for commercial gain, given that the main characters do profit massively from Dease’s art.
However, I’d also say that the film also offers a foreboding warning to those with power. It’s a portent that those with fewer means may yet hold the powerful to account for their actions. It’s the idea that those who seem untouchable can, in fact, be held accountable by someone they thought to profit off of that causes the horror in the film, at least for the main characters. Yet, this is not an anxiety that the common viewer shares. Instead, it’s somewhat satisfying to watch the characters get their comeuppance, knowing that they brought it upon themselves through their greed and hubris.
These themes all felt pertinent to me given the role that social media now plays in all of our lives. Just like in Velvet Buzzsaw, it often feels like the celebrities and corporate syndicates (large or small) we see on our screens are impossibly distant from us, and the fact that we are used by them as products for advertisers is a forgone conclusion. After all, it’s not a question of whether or not our data is being sold, it’s a question of to whom. In Velvet Buzzsaw, the upper echelon of the art scene looks much like the influencers and personalities on our phones – they’re flawless, fashionable, and know all the buzzwords to sound as though they’re in the business of authenticity. But by the end of the movie, none of that posturing means a thing in the face of mortality, and the ones who live are only the ones who truly are attempting to live honestly without exploiting others.
