History Film / VelvetBuzzsaw

* AntiHero:Rhodora, Josephina, and Morf. They probably aren’t quite bad enough to fall under VillainProtagonist, but all three are shady and materialistic.

* DoingItForTheArt: [[invoked]] While Damrish agrees to a deal with the HAZE Gallery to sell his art in higher circles and receive wider recognition, by the end he ends the deal and goes back to his original art collective. When Josephina tells Rhodora, all she has to say is "good for him", realizing what the cut-throat world of fine-art had done to her and the people around her (though the cursed paintings killing everyone probably didn't help her mood either).

* BrokenAesop: Almost to the point of {{Glurge}}, were it not for [[spoiler: Damrish who still wants to exhibit his art, just with his original, smaller scale exhibitionist]]. The movie has an obvious message about appreciating art for its own sake, instead of valuing it solely for monetary purposes. People who do sell art either professionally or for a quick buck are snobs and/or greedy and [[KillEmAll should all die]], [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished even if they realize why that is wrong and try to redeem themselves.]]

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Many of the character's names are as over-the-top and pretentious as the people they belong to (Jon Dondon, Vetril Dease, Rhodora Haze), and only the last one has the excuse of being a former rock musician. Main character '''Morf Vandewalt''' straddles the border between this and AtrociousAlias.

When Rhodora decides to display and sell Dease's work posthumously, she and various members of her social circle find themselves [[AnomalousArt terrorized by the very art]] their lives are dependent on. Creator/JakeGyllenhaal, Creator/ToniCollette, Zawe Ashton, Tom Sturridge, Creator/BillyMagnussen, Creator/DaveedDiggs, Natalia Dyer, and Creator/JohnMalkovich also star.

** The homeless men who take the paintings from [[spoiler: Bryson's]] crashed tuck: [=YMMV=] on whether doing that (and selling the paintings to ordinary people for much humbler prices) makes them a GoodCounterpart to the upper-class Haze Gallery.

* MrExposition:there’s several albeit all fairly interesting characters.

* CruelMercy: It initially looks like [[spoiler: Rhodora]] will survive, but at the cost of never being able to be near a piece of art again. [[spoiler: Then we remember her tattoo]].

* SlasherMovie: The film's structure is comparable to that of ''Film/FinalDestination'', which follows a group of characters as they're all killed by a single supernatural force one-by-one, rather than a physical person or thing.

* PlotTriggeringDeath: Jospehina discovering Dease's corpse is what launches the plot of the film.

* AmoralAttorney: The Haze Gallery employs three who coach Josephina on her story about how she found Dease's artwork, which includes omitting the fact that she broke into his apartment. All three are KarmaHoudini's.

** The homeless men who take the paintings from [[spoiler: Bryson's]] crashed tuck: [=YMMV=] on whether doing that (and selling the paintings to ordinary people for much humbler prices) makes them a GoodCounterpart or NotSoDifferent to the upper-class Haze Gallery.

* DoingItForTheArt: [[invoked]] While Damrish agrees to a deal with the HAZE Gallery to sell his art in higher circles and receive wider recognition by the end he ends the deal and goes back to his original art collective. When Josephina tells Rhodora, all she has to say is "good for him", realizing what the cut-throat world of fine-art had done to her and the people around her (though the cursed paintings killing everyone probably didn't help her mood either).

* JustFollowingOrders: Interestingly Dease's spirit seems to respect this, as people who threaten or meddle into his affairs under their own initiative become targets while those peripherally involved due to their employers orders (such as Gita, who worked on preparing his paintings for exhibit, and Ruskinspear, the detective who looked into his past for Jon) are left alone.

** The homeless men who take the paintings from [[spoiler: Bryson's]] crashed tuck: Ymmv on whether doing that (and selling the paintings to ordinary people for much humbler prices) makes them a GoodCounterpart or NotSoDifferent to the upper-class Haze Gallery.

* DeadArtistsAreBetter: Zigzagged. Dease’s death and his work nearly being thrown out are indeed a big selling point for his paintings, but they’re also admired for their merit by many people (notably Morf is enthralled when he sees some of them on Josephina’s lunch table before he’s even heard of Dease, let alone that he's dead). And living artists like Damrish and Piers are also big sellers.
* FaceOfAThug: the head of Damrish's art collective

* GreenEyedMonster: while part of it is business, Jon shows a lot of this towards the Haze gallery, and goes after they’re artists, stealing Piers and hiring Ruskinspear to dig up dirt on Dease.

* HandsomeLech: Bryson is adequately attractive, but Jospehina is repulsed by him and claims to have rebuked his advances on her.
* HarmfulToMinors: the kids who found [[spoiler: Gretchen’s]] body and played with the blood, thinking it was just an exhibit.

* {{Irony}}: At the end, the ill gotten cursed paintings that the art world elite loved because it would make them a fortune and were planning to make millions off of in acts of pure greed [[spoiler: are sold on the street corner for as little as five dollars to people who were buying them simply because they liked them, and therefor truly appreciating Dease's work like the 'professionals' never did.]]

* JustFollowingOrders: interestingly Dease’s spirit seems to respect this, as people who threaten or meddle into his affairs under their own initiative become targets while those peripherally involved due to their employers orders (such as Gita, who worked on preparing his paintings for exhibit, and Ruskinspear, the detective who looked into his past for Jon) are left alone.

* RunningGag: Coco getting hired and showing up the next day to [[spoiler:find her new boss dead. It happens THREE TIMES.]] At the end she [[PrecisionFStrike just loses it.]]

** Gretchen also claims to have started out as more idealistic before realizing that there was no use in fighiting against the mega-collectors gobbling up most of the art, at which point she jumped onboard with them.

* WhatTheHellHero: a couple of art patrons give this to Morf after Ricky's [[spoiler: suicide attempt following Morf's bad review]] with one of them also adding that she enjoyed his show, and what she saw bore no resemblance to what Morf wrote about.
* WishFulfillment: One of the earlier Dease paintings shown tragically depicts a little boy successfully (and imporbably) overpowering an abusive father to protect his sister, a piece clearly inspired by his own abusive upbringing.

* AllPartOfTheShow: The morning after [[spoiler:Gretchen gets killed by the Sphere]], visitors mistake her corpse as part of the artwork.

** Josephina and Rhodora stealing Dease’s paintings from his apartment in the first place.

** Rhodora’s speech to Piers at the first funeral, where rather than show frustration at his slump, she recalls a story about her dead bandmate, before gently telling him to take time off and create something for himself.

* RespectedByTheRespected: a painter version, Piers and Damrish, an OldMaster and a hot rising star respectively, are both awestruck by Dease’s work.

* YourCheatingHeart: Morf and Josephina both cheat on their respective partners with each other, though in the latter's case, she was spurned by learning of her boyfriend's infidelity.

* DeadArtistsAreBetter: zigzagged, Dease’s death and his work nearly being thrown out are indeed a big selling point for his paintings, but they’re also admired for their merit by many people (notably Morf is enthralled when he sees some of them on Josephina’s lunch table before he’s even heard of Dease, let alone that he's dead). And living artists like Damrish and Piers are also big sellers.

* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: Ruskinspear invokes this trope when questioning whether the art world will care about what he dug up, although Jon expresses confidence that they will.

* CruelMercy: It initially looks like [[spoiler: Rhodora]] will survive, but at the cost of never being able to be near a piece of art again. [[spoiler: then we remember her tattoo]].

* CruelMercy: It initially looks like [[spoiler: Rhodora]. will survive, but at the cost of never being able to be near a piece of art again. [[spoiler: then we remember her tattoo]].