For a film that's ostensibly about visuals and art and vision and yadda yadda yadda--the very flat, day-bright look of the film just completely fails to do what it needs to do to sell the experience. This is something that should have been shot like a Friedkin or Argento and instead it looks like, well, your average Netflix movie. I almost have to feel like maybe the DP, Robert Elswit--who was PTA's main guy for a long time and has done such incredible-looking films with great depth of shadow and texture--must have made some sort of intentional choice here to make everything look, uh, shallow and garish and two-dimensional? I don't know. I was reminded of the disappointing look of, say, MAPS TO THE STARS where it seems like the superficiality of what the film is trying to portray is carried over into the look of the film itself (though MAPS TO THE STARS is still far uglier than this film). There are some shots I really liked in this one (the night shots fare much better, some of the close-ups are good, shots of Morf's eyes when he first sees the cursed art and is "ensorcelled," Piers reaching for a painting out-of-focus) but yeah, not nearly what you would expect from the guy who shot THERE WILL BE BLOOD or NIGHTCRAWLER.
Despite the film's bland aesthetic, I did enjoy this high-low schlock pulp thing that the film does with its context-genre mashing and its performances; I found it far more interesting and watchable than other reference points like MAPS or ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL. It is a long ways off from what I'd call a good movie, but it is one I still personally enjoyed watching, somehow. I just wish the aesthetic (not just the cinematography, but also the editing and sound design) had really tapped into the spirit of the story, because then at least it would have been an intoxicating mess as opposed to just a stilted one.
