Dead Man’s Canvas

I’ve never been sure what kind of horror fan I am. Splatter stuff, all gore and screaming? Or those so-badly-made films where the cheap effects become weirdly comforting? Or real thrillers that actually burrow into your skull?

Dan Gilroy’s new film on Netflix starts clean—a minimal look at the Los Angeles art world, where everything gets cranked up to insane levels just to register as valuable anymore. The people playing the game find out they’re becoming the artwork, though, and it gets savage. It’s what happens when taste becomes currency and currency becomes deadly.

With Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Toni Collette, Zawe Ashton, Tom Sturridge, Natalia Dyer, Daveed Diggs, Billy Magnussen, and John Malkovich, it scratches an itch if you’re tired of beautiful idiots stumbling into the woods and becoming dinner. There’s real satisfaction in watching a world built on performed sophistication actually collapse.