Horror movie/art world satire VELVET BUZZSAW (2019, caught on Netflix) works far better as satire than a horror film, but the result is a lot of fun in no small part due to solid performances from a terrific cast.

The film initially introduces us to art critic Morf Vandewalt (Jake Gyllenhaal delivering a unique blend of earnest and smarmy), who at an art convention starts an affair with Josephina (Zawe Ashton), an employee of Rhodora Haze (Renee Russo, rocking it), owner of the lucrative Haze Gallery and formerly a member of a rock band called Velvet Buzzsaw.

When an old man in Josephina’s building dies, she discovers a treasure trove of paintings in his apartment that are disturbingly visceral. Knowing they are bound for the trash, she takes them and cuts a deal with Rhodora to sell them to her rich clients. But the paintings are haunted, and don’t want to be sold, resulting in a trail of death.

The deaths themselves are predictable and not very interesting, though there are some superbly comical elements to it, such as people visiting a museum mistaking a blood-soaked corpse as being part of the exhibit and admiring it. Where VELVET BUZZSAW shines is in its satire of the high-brow art world. The ensemble collection of characters, all played by solid actors from Gyllenhaal and Russo to John Malkovich, are all bullshitting, backstabbing, manipulative, ruthless, and greedy, so there’s a comeuppance aspect to their deaths. The esoteric art dialogue is spot on for the kinds of things you hear in that world, as is the industry insider machinery engaged in building brand and value into artists and art.

Unfortunately, while the satire shines and the characters make the movie a lot of fun, as a horror film, VELVET BUZZSAW is weak and predictable, and even though the characters die “artistically,” let’s say, the two elements of the film never really mesh to its rich potential. An example of a missed opportunity is the paintings exact misery on their owners individually, while I kept hoping for a wholesale massacre at a museum exhibit, which would have made for an amazing climax.

Overall, VELVET BUZZSAW is fun and quirky, and I enjoyed it, though as a horror movie it could have been so much more.

The ad for the original SUSPIRIA (directed by Dario Argento, 1977) completely freaked me out as a kid, so when the 2018 SUSPIRIA remake came out, I resolved to check it out. I found it an overwrought if strangely compelling film that by the end adds up to something more than the sum of its parts.

The film is about a young woman Susie (Dakota Johnson), who abandons her Mennonite family after her mother’s death in 1977 to travel to Berlin and join a dance school led by a group of enigmatic women including Madame Blanc (an understated but intense performance by Tilda Swinton). These women turn out to be witches in the midst of a power struggle between Blanc and the presiding, physically waning matriarch, Madame Markos, who claims to be the incarnation of Mother Suspiriam. They are planning a ritual to place Markos’s spirit into the young body of one of their dancers. Susie’s natural dancing talent and spiritual sensitivity makes her an ideal candidate and culminates in a grisly confrontation.

The film is overwrought in creating tension that isn’t there and by overworking the camera with tilts and zooms that seem to have no purpose. There’s a lot of political subtext, with the Berlin Wall often shown along with newscasts about hijackings and assassinations. The political stuff has been criticized and subjected to its own overwrought interpretations by critics, though to me they’re there just to remind us we’re in Berlin in the year 1977. Critics also spotted numerous big themes in the film, though the only one apparent to me is the matriarchal power struggle. What comes through far more strongly is a reach to celebrate a distinct horror aesthetic.

The SUSPIRIA remake is quite beautiful in its design and becomes increasingly engaging once the director stops celebrating the art of film and starts telling a real story. It’s not very scary, though it has its grisly moments, and the gory ending is quite something. The witches themselves are pretty interesting, and I enjoyed their history more than the real historical subtext to a point I wished there was more of it and less of the other. Overall, I liked it, admittedly a lot, though I can’t say I loved it or that it stuck with me as I thought it might. Definitely recommended for horror aficionados looking for something fresh; for the rest, YMMV.

A bit meta, a bit comedy, and a bit gory slasher fun, YOU MIGHT BE THE KILLER (2009) turns the traditional “slaughter at Camp X” scenario on its head by making the slasher the protagonist. The result is a solid B horror movie, a one-trick pony that sustains itself for the full run time without becoming boring.

In 2009, writers Sam Sykes and Chuck Wendig bantered on Twitter during a discussion about slasher movie tropes. Brett Simons developed the conversation into the film. At Camp Clear Vista, Sam and a group of counselors get together to prepare for a summer of good fun with the arriving kids. Soon, bodies are dropping and a bloody Sam is running through the woods, where it slowly dawns on him that he himself might just be the killer. He calls his friend Chuck, who helps him sort horror movie tropes in an effort to get him through the night alive.

The film is a little too self aware and not as funny as similar movies like TUCKER AND DALE VERSUS EVIL, and while the convention is interesting, it seems to have more potential than the film realizes. That being said, it’s a solid production from the pacing to the acting. In the end, YOU MIGHT BE THE KILLER is just good fun, a nice diversion for horror fans.

I skipped over THE LAST EXORCISM (2010) for years, thinking it just another exorcism movie, and a found-footage one at that (insert raspberry noise). After reading an interesting review, though, I took a chance and boy, what a gem it turned out to be for me. THE LAST EXORCISM delivers a high level of creepiness packaged in a thoughtful, intelligent meditation on faith and skepticism.

The movie is a mockumentary in which Cotton Marcus is a minister who lost his faith after it was doctors, not God, who cured his son of a severe illness. Patrick Fabian brings real charisma, humanity, and likeability to the role, which makes the movie instantly engaging. Marcus still ministers and performs exorcisms, but for him, it’s a show, a service that helps people feel better but otherwise doesn’t mean anything. Still, after hearing about a child dying during an exorcism, he decides it’s time to throw in the towel, and agrees to do the documentary so that fewer people might believe in the power of exorcism and risk getting hurt. His last exorcism turns out to be a Louisiana farm, where Louis Sweetzer (a solid and menacing Louis Herthum) raises his teenage children Nell and Caleb in a strict religious household. Louis doesn’t believe in science because doctors failed his wife, so he’s turned to God for guidance in every aspect of his life.

What follows is something that surprises him. Nell appears to be genuinely possessed. Or is she?

THE LAST EXORCISM rolls out as both an entertaining possession story and also a meditation on God, faith, and fraud. I had one big criticism, which was the ending, which worked on one level for me but not as a whole; it could have achieved the same thing with a smaller scale. But so what. The direction and scripting are tight, the acting is terrific, the found-footage element plays as advantage and not gimmick (the two filmmakers even end up personally involved in the story), and the end result engages your head as well as your heart rate. I’m happy to recommend this as another indie gem that proves good story can make even tired old tropes feel like they’re young again.