History Film / VelvetBuzzsaw

** The buzzsaw tattoo itself, which is highlighted early in the film on Rhodora's neck. [[spoiler: After she realizes the extent of Dease's curse, she gets rid of all the artwork in her house. But she still has one piece of art on her neck...]]

* ChekhovsGun: When Rhodora first begins believing in the curse in spite of herself she looks closely and suspiciously at a charcoal piece of a woman sitting on the ground with an animal beside them and two human shadows approaching. [[spoiler: After removing the art from her house, she unintentionally recreates the scene, signifying she's not safe just before her own buzzsaw tattoo drills into her neck.]]

* BearerOfBadNews: Josephina and Coco's first scene has Coco breaking it to Jospehina that she saw Josephina's boyfriend making out with another girl in a bar.

* 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]].

* GenreSavvy: [[spoiler: Morf and Rhodora's]]. efforts to get rid of the art after they accept it is cursed. Coco telling Morf that she doesn't think he's crazy, after having found two dead bodies.

* HarmfulToMinors: the kids who found [[spoiler: Gretchen’s]]. body and played with the blood, thinking it was just an exhibit.

* MrExposition:there’s several albeit all fairly interesting characters. Ruskinspear, the private investigator who investigates Dease. The landlords employee who tells Josephina about Dease's paintings, and his final instructions. The VA janitor who tells Morf about Dease maybe killing someone in the past. Gita, who looked into the methodology of Dease's paintings, and discovered they were painted with blood.
* TheMuse: Dease's art inspires both Peirs and [[spoiler:Damrish]] to leave the increasingly toxic gallery scene and revisit their roots as creators. Whatever infernal force lives in the paintings [[spoiler:winds up sparing them for simply enjoying the works instead of trying to make a dime off of them]].

* OpportunisticBastard: Jon hiring Coco just to pump for information about th Haze Gallery. Josephina and Rhodora stealing Dease’s paintings from his apartment in the first place. 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) count makes them a GoodCounterpart or NotSoDifferent to the upper-class Haze Gallery.
* PetTheDog: 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. Josephina giving Coco Dease's cat might be this or just her wanting to palm it off on someone.

* ProfessionalButtKisser: Jon to Pies, while visiting his studio.

* SkepticNoLonger: [[spoiler: Rhodora]]. after [[spoiler: Morf]] dies and she’s almost killed.

* BiTheWay: Morf has a boyfriend, Ed, is also in an on/off relationship with Josephina.

** SpaceWhaleAesop: Alternatively, dont sell a dead artists paintings against his wishes, or his vengeful curse will kill you and everyone who makes a profit on it.

.* {{Foreshadowing}}: Hoboman's artist telling Morf how the statute is being kept in storage because his review killed the sell.

* SkepticNoLonger: [[spoiler: Rhodora]]. after [[poiler: Morf]] dies and she’s almost killed.

* SkepticNoLonger: [[spoiler: Rhodora]]. after [[poiler: Morf[[. dies and she’s almost killed.

* PetTheDog: Rhodora’s speech to at the first funeral, where arather 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. Josephina giving Coco Dease's cat might be this or just her wanting to palm it off on someone.

* KnowNothingItAll: Jo, who briefly mistakes trash bag lying on the floor for a work of art.

* PetTheDog: Rhodora’s speech to at the first funeral, where arather 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. Josephina giving Coco Dease cat might be this or just her wanting to palm it off on someone.

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

* 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.

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, Daveed Diggs, Natalia Dyer, and Creator/JohnMalkovich also star.

* PetTheDog: Rhodora’s speech to at the first funeral, where arather 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. Josephina giving Coco Dease cat might be this or just her wanting to palm it off on someone.* PlotTriggeringDeath: Jospehina discovering Dease's corpse is what launches the plot of the film.

* OpportunisticBastard: Jon hiring Coco just to pump for information about th Haze Gallery. Josephina and Rhodora stealing Dease’s paintings from his apartment in the first place. 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) count makes them a GoodCounterpart or NotSoDifferent to the upper-class Haze Gallery.

* AwesomeAnimation: The opening credits.

* 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 livingartists like Damrish and Piers are also big sellers.
* DepravedDoctor: Dease has experiences with some at the asylum he was placed in.

* KnowNothingAtAll: Jo, who briefly mistakes trash bag lying on the floor for a work of art.

* OpportunisticNastard: Jon hiring Coco just to pump for information about th Haze Gallery. Josephina and Rhodora stealing Dease’s paintings from his apartment in the first place. 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) count makes them a GoodCounterpart or NotSoDifferent to the upper-class Haze Gallery.

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

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

* NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly: The genre of the film ranges from horror to satire to slasher to psychological thriller, often from scene to scene.

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

* {{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?]]

* BittersweetEnding: Kinda. [[spoiler: Half of the characters are killed off over their greed and desire of popularity, with the exception being Peirs and Coco, who survived by sheer luck and Damrish himself only survives due to the fact he returns back to making art ''for the art'' instead of just about the money. The downside however is that homeless people steal Dease's art thanks to Rhonda Haze's assistant (the first victim) crashing his truck and it's content ejected out of the back at the gas station at Rhonda's insistence of storing some of the art at an undisclosed warehouse to sell for later. They begin to sell it for cheap.]]

* BittersweetEnding: Kinda. [[spoiler: Half of the characters are killed off over their greed and desire of popularity, with the exception being Peirs and Coco, who survived by sheer luck and Damrish himself only survives due to the fact he returns back to making art ''for the art'' instead of just about the money. The downside however is that homeless people steal Dease's art thanks to Rhinda Haze's assistant (the first victim) crashing his truck and it's content ejected out of the back at the gas station at Rhonda's insistence of storing some of the art at an undisclosed warehouse to sell for later. They begin to sell it for cheap.]]

* BittersweetEnding: Kinda. [[spoiler: Half of the characters are killed off over their greed and desire of popularity, with the exception being Peirs and Coco, who survived by sheer luck and Damrish himself only survives due to the fact he returns back to making art ''for the art'' instead of just about the money. The downside however is that homeless people steal Dease's art thanks to Morf leaving it outside the storage facility and they begin to sell it for cheap.]]

* AnArmAndALeg: [[spoiler:Gretchen's arm is cut off by ''Sphere'', and bleeds out to death]].

Set in the UsefulNotes/{{Los Angeles}} art scene, a gallery owned by former rock star Rhodora Haze (Creator/ReneRusso) is rocked by the discovery of a reclusive artist's incredible work, following his death under mysterious circumstances.

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

!! ''Velvet Buzzsaw'' contains examples of:

* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: Want to know how ''almost all the main characters die'', and in what order? Just watch the trailer!

* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler: Josephina is lured into a graffiti exhibit that forms from out of nowhere. When she walks in and is distracted by her phone, the graffiti paint melts off the walls and covers her, melding her into the street art once its done.]]

** [[spoiler:Bryson, a sleazy gallery worker, is killed by a painting of monkeys working on a car]].