Netflix’s Velvet Buzzsaw trailer pits Jake Gyllenhaal against evil haunted artwork

Velvet Buzzsaw is the latest movie from writer/director Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler). It’s a horror film set in the art world, with haunted paintings doing spooky painting things. On first look, the movie seems like a fascinating blend of the H.P. Lovecraft story “Pickman’s Model” and John Carpenter’s underrated (and, fittingly, Lovecraftian) In the Mouth of Madness.

Netflix released a trailer for Velvet Buzzsaw earlier today, which you can check out below.

We are all Hoboman. Hoboman is all of us.

Looking at the artwork in the movie, I’m reminded of a purportedly haunted painting called The Hands Resist Him, which you may have seen online at some point. Credited to Bill Stoneham, the 1972 painting is supposedly cursed and comes to life. (They said so on eBay, it has to be true.) According to the Wikipedia entry about The Hands Resist Him, an art critic and a gallery owner both died within a year of coming in contact with the painting. Or so says Stoneham.

That painting, by the way, looks a little something like this.

And you are scared now. You’re welcome. Seriously, though, I assume Gilroy was inspired by the internet legend build around that painting.

Here’s an official synopsis for the film by Netflix:

Velvet Buzzsaw is a thriller set in the contemporary art world scene of Los Angeles where big money artists and mega-collectors pay a high price when art collides with commerce. Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Toni Collette, Zawe Ashton, Tom Sturridge, Natalia Dyer, Daveed Diggs, Billy Magnussen, and John Malkovich star in the new mind-bending film written and directed by Dan Gilroy.

Velvet Buzzsaw comes out on Netflix on February 1st. It will also play in select theaters. (New York and LA, I’m looking at you.)