In 2018, Kanye West invited journalists, celebrities, and influencers to a remote Wyoming ranch to play everyone his then-imminent album ye. The rare proximity to Kanye—who was just beginning his descent from the summit of pop culture—was covered by every outlet imaginable, including this one. “Celebrity is a weird thing,” Alex Frank wrote in his Pitchfork roundup of the event. “Even if you fancy yourself cynical and jaded… fame’s glow will shine in your eyes anyway.”

Our irrepressible fixation with celebrity, even at its most toxic, would have been an interesting conceit for Opus, the feature debut from writer-director Mark Anthony Green. The A24 horror flick centers on an event similar to Kanye’s, in which sequestered pop messiah Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich) reemerges after 30 years in seclusion to invite a cadre of industry vets to his desert compound for a taste of new music—only to lure them to a dark fate. “There’s no cult like celebrity,” the film’s tagline asserts. But while Opus parades as a critique of fame and those who kneel at its altar, Green offers no lasting observations of commodified narcissism, or of fans who get swept into a state of mass hysteria. Instead, Green presents a flimsy scenario of one popstar wielding his power for vaguely nefarious purposes.

Opus follows Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri), a young journalist working at a legacy music magazine. Despite her three-year stint at the publication, Ariel’s ambition is underappreciated, and her smarmy editor Stan (Murray Bartlett) hands her pitches off to more experienced writers. But with Moretti’s VIP invite to his listening party, Ariel gets an unlikely chance to prove her worth. Moretti’s guestlist also includes: Stan—who hogs the story while putting Ariel on note-taking duty—seasoned television host Clara Armstrong (Juliette Lewis), paparazza Bianca Tyson (Melissa Chambers), influencer Emily Katz (Stephanie Suganami), and Bill Lotto (Mark Sivertsen), longtime journalist and Moretti nemesis. As the horror genre requires, we sense that something isn’t quite right upon the group’s arrival in the desert; the compound is staffed by a community of blue-clad cult members called the Levelists, who worship beauty, the artistic process—and Moretti himself. As guests begin vanishing one-by-one, Ariel attempts to uncover Moretti’s ominous plan.

Green wrote Opus during his own tenure in media, as an editor for GQ, where he profiled artists like Donald Glover, the Weeknd, Diplo, and Janelle Monáe. And yet, despite years inside an elite industry, Opus depicts it without much specificity or nuance. The media personnel we meet in the film are less defined than even the most cartoonish gumshoe detective in a B-grade noir. Even Ariel, who has vague ambitions (to interview famous people, to write a book) but no tangible interests, is a flat depiction of a young writer staring down an endangered medium: the glossy music magazine. Fellow critic and compound invitee Bill Lotto, meanwhile, is Moretti’s rival due to a joke he once printed about the singer’s dog. (We learn this via exposition; Lotto hardly utters a word the entire film.)

There was an opportunity for Green to reveal something about the state of pop culture criticism, through the lens of the old and the new guard. Or, to mine the thorny relationships that can arise between press and celebrity subjects. But neither is explored. There are plenty of films set in niche and elite industries that lack definition, but I had hoped Green’s firsthand knowledge of access journalism would get in on the nitty-gritty details, and toss a few punchlines out to all of us still stuck in the grind.

Green presents many symbols of unease that exist without purpose throughout the film. They may masquerade as foreshadowing, but they never pay off with a consequence, or even function as red herrings. Dotted around Moretti’s homestead, monitoring every move of their guests, the Levelists exist only as vessels for cliched creepy behavior. When they’re not practicing archery, painting, or shucking oysters, they brush up on more sinister activities: Discreetly taking measurements of their guests’ bodies; making voodoo dolls in their likenesses; stocking a shed with bloody fur pelts and jars of embalmed critters. When we meet a Levelist for the first time, Green cuts to Ariel’s notebook, where she writes and underlines the words “creepy greeter” in black ink. The whole of Opus’ character development can be summed up in short, scribbled phrases like this.

Green attempts the difficult balancing act of making Opus a horror-comedy, but the humor feels forced and low-hanging. It often exists for its own sake, outside the logic of the film. In one scene, for example, Levelists visit the room of each guest to give them a mandatory makeover: wardrobe, hair, makeup, and genital shaving—in that order. The odd ritual exists in a vacuum, and is explained solely as something Moretti demands of all of his guests. The punchline? Well, a Levelist asks Ariel, “How’s the lady garden? The cha-cha? Your vagina.”

If there is anything of less consequence than the imagery and general plotting of Opus, it is the characters. They feel more holographic than flesh-and-blood, in part because they are given so little to do and say. We are told early on that Ariel wants to write, but she isn’t supplied with any interests beyond a desire to be renowned. Over lunch one day, Ariel’s slightly-older friend reduces her lack of success to mere demographics: She is healthy, well-educated, doesn’t have a crippling drug addiction, and isn’t rich or poor enough to be truly interesting. She is, as he puts it, “middle as fuck.” But, even if the characters in the movie find Ariel mid, the audience should not. Edebiri does the most she can with the part, but her crackling wit and self-conscious charm can’t salvage a role this underwritten. It’d be like inflating a punctured balloon.

There is even less for the supporting cast to chew on. Murray Bartlett and Juliette Lewis, both agile and complex performers, are relegated to merely reacting to Moretti’s hijinx; like when, as the pop star plays new music for his guests, he slithers around their seats, simulating sex acts on Bartlett and Lewis’ characters, who respond with dopey elation like the fame-feasting leeches they are.

And then there is Moretti. Opus faces a unique challenge at the center of every movie about a fictional band or pop star: Do we buy it? Is the fictional star worth the concocted hype? Is the music good? Or is it supposed to be bad, thus fueling a satire about the absurdity of fame? Opus can’t make up its mind and seems confused about what kind of popstar to present. Moretti is meant to be sleek and ominous, but his costumes look cheap—ill-fitting velvet suits with beaded appliques that seem more crafty than couture. Malkovich approaches the role as a caricature of himself, and he has no potency as the sex symbol he’s supposed to be; his bumbling attempts at seductive pantomime feel clumsy and perverse. Because of the blurred blueprint for Moretti, Malkovich seems like he’s running relay between two roles: the Vicomte de Valmont and Mugatu.

Even if you are prodding at the absurd nature of celebrity, it helps to construct a believable star, one whose charisma is so intoxicating he could resurface after decades and still generate a mass media frenzy. Or: one whose music is undeniable. Few movies have risen to that prompt: That Thing You Do!, Josie and the Pussycats, and Phantom of the Paradise come to mind. Like the directors behind those classics, Green enlisted seasoned musicians to write original songs for his character. We hear three Moretti tracks in Opus, all penned by disco legend Nile Rodgers and hit songwriter and producer The-Dream.

But the singles are pre-packaged electropop sprinkled with slutted-up lyrics about bling and ass that curdle as they leave Moretti’s lips. (Malkovich laid down vocals for each song.) The occasional swipe of Auto-Tune somehow makes everything worse: the sound of an out-of-touch pop star grasping at the tools of contemporary music. You might think that was Green’s whole point, but I have a hard time believing he hired two top-tier songwriters to achieve such a washed-up effect.

(It’s a disturbing coincidence that The-Dream is accused, in an explosive lawsuit, of “[luring a] young and vulnerable artist into an abusive, violent, and manipulative relationship filled with physical assaults, violent sexual encounters, and horrific psychological manipulation.” The-Dream has denied his accuser’s allegations and sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, but the case remains active in federal court.)

Watching Opus, I experienced a level of exhaustion rare for a film with a runtime south of two hours. And then I realized: I was exhausted by imagery I have seen so much in recent years. Opus repurposes the aesthetic language of several contemporary horror films. Many reviewers have already compared its atmosphere and plotting to Midsommar, The Menu, Blink Twice, and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. And, yet, in Blink Twice and Midsommar especially, the suspicious parties’ activities and tools always exist for a reason… as plot devices or some thematic emblem. Opus seems to have only digested the visual cues from the films before it. Not the substance.