I have been in a constant Netflix deep-dive for the past two years. For me, sitting down to watch a movie has become two and a half hours of exploring Netflix’s cache of the weirdest movies in the world, giving up and actually doing the reading that’s due tomorrow instead of enduring the endless scrolling any longer. I’m putting an end to all that, and instead just watching all of the weird movies buried deep in the bowels of America’s favorite media streaming site. Luckily for you, I’ll also be reviewing them in this column, rotating through different genres every week. Buckle up, folks, because today’s deep-cut is a Netflix original thriller called “Velvet Buzzsaw.”

Picture this: a neurotic, bisexual art critic played by Jake Gyllenhaal, the girl from “Stranger Things” (that’s not Millie Bobby Brown) unwittingly finding a bunch of dead bodies and Toni Colette in a chin-length silver wig. That’s a good introduction to the best parts of Netflix’s “Velvet Buzzsaw.” The film centers in on the Los Angeles art scene, caricaturing the ruthless, self-centered LA elite culture through the characters played by Gyllenhaal, Colette, Zawe Ashton and Rene Russo. The characters’ high-flying art world is shaken when Josephina (Ashton), an underappreciated assistant to a powerful dealer, discovers the artwork of a man in her building right after his mysterious death. The art is an instant hit and in high-demand, bringing in a lot of money for the Haze gallery, when the paintings start to come to life. The art gradually begins to sabotage and, eventually, take the lives of every character that profits from selling it.

The acting in this film is really what carries it, along with some good camera work and the most comically ridiculous art-world names you’ve ever heard (Morf Vandewall, Jon DonDon, Rhodora Haze and Ventril Dease, for example). The film’s biting satire of Los Angeles elite culture, as well as hilariously accurate performances, make the first half-hour of the film really fun. As the dead artist Dease’s paintings start to wreak havoc, though, the film’s humor dissipates in favor of creepier scenes as the movie takes a turn towards thriller/horror. In my opinion, pacing in the “scary” portion of this film was badly done. Instead of spiraling through the slow, painful descent of this high-brow world whilst utilizing the ironic self-assuredness of the characters to build suspense, “Velvet Buzzsaw” made too sharp a turn from satirical to ominous. For me, the suspense-building in the middle portion—and even the end—of the film fell a bit flat.

Even after all the buildup, I wasn’t impressed by the death scenes (with the exception of one, in which Colette’s arm is ripped off by a piece of art. Colette is the best actress of our time and can make anything seem authentic; all of her too-few scenes in this film are electric). Many of the death scenes were supposed to be menacing—threat creeping in over the span of a few minutes and finally striking, killing quickly and mercilessly. However, for me the “creeping” of the killers lasted far too long. The murderous entities are all bizarre and, realistically, the characters themselves would have noticed the coming threat (particularly in a scene at the very end where Joanna is absorbed by a pool of anthropomorphized paint).The breakdown of the all-powerful art critic Vanderwall (Gyllenhaal) is the most compelling part of the end of “Velvet Buzzsaw”—a man who used to take pride in his selectivity is driven mad by the repercussions of his own criticisms, brought back by the paintings to haunt him. Watch this movie if you like well-done portraits of a microcosm of high-brow society, need something to do with your friends or are from Southern California like me and love to make fun of LA. I wouldn’t watch it for a good scare (or even a decent one).