OVERVIEW
Imagine being stuck in the world of children’s shows like Barney or Teletubbies, forever forced to sing happy songs and hug the humanoid creatures. Buddy runs with that idea through a Black Mirror-style setup in which kids are part of the show Buddy!, singing and dancing to conquer fears and help others. But one child soon realizes they are largely at Buddy’s mercy, with no real power to resist his control. Behind the friendly facade is a sociopath willing to kill and replace cast members who refuse to love him.
BACKGROUND
The original idea came from Casper Kelly, an Adult Swim veteran, expanding on a childhood question he has carried for years: how do the kids in these shows always know how to follow the story? What happens if one of them refuses to play along, or simply does not want to follow the episode’s lesson and plot beats? It is a great hook for Kelly, whose work has often taken playful pop culture textures and pushed them into something queasy, including the Cheddar Goblin detour in Mandy. On paper, Buddy looked like one of the most promising titles in Sundance’s Midnight lineup.
EXECUTION
The film starts off strong, establishing its world and rules with the clarity and purpose you would hope for in a children’s horror film. The kids’ suspicion that something is wrong comes through cleanly in the episode structure: they have 22 minutes to complete their task, then they sing their song with Buddy, and the whole world resets. The movie stays engaging on design and rhythm alone, with its bright set, forced cheer, and songs parodying a certain purple dinosaur, all of it evoking either nostalgia or revulsion depending on what you remember from those shows as a kid.
The talking backpacks, talking trains, and ever-smiling supporting adults are parodied with dead-on accuracy. But the best gag is the contrast between the titular unicorn’s soft, amiable voice, courtesy of Keegan-Michael Key, and his monstrous actions, which keeps the comedy sharp even as the danger ramps up. The young cast, though, is uniformly strong at emulating the exact tone of children’s TV, parodying it while still selling fear and bravery without becoming annoying.
Kelly also peppers the film with visual jokes that nod to classic movies, including The Shining and The Night of the Hunter, as the kids escape the show’s set in search of a way out of that sick world. He makes the whole endeavor feel unsettling, aided by sudden flashes of violence and a willingness to kill off characters, even children. It raises the stakes, although the impact of those deaths often feels muted because the movie moves past them so quickly.
Even if not perfect, it holds our attention, though not for the entire 95-minute runtime. Halfway through, it loses momentum, especially when it jumps to the real world and introduces Cristin Milioti’s character. She is clearly committed, playing a role that recalls her “USS Callister” turn, but the character and the family storyline are mostly uninteresting and barely affect the main plot. The sudden emphasis on the mother-daughter relationship feels arbitrary, and it is hard to see how it connects to what Freddy has been going through.
There are attempts to comment on what screens do to families, or how television shapes children, but it all lands flat. It is nothing we have not heard before, and it feels dated in an age where the iPad has largely replaced television time for many kids. The film would have been stronger if it had simply focused on the kids’ silly, desperate quest to escape, without feeling the need to underline a message. Instead, these detours break the momentum right when the stakes should intensify, and after a while, we stop fearing for the children.
The film tries to bring back the danger in its last section as Buddy takes on a new, extremely lame design, but it is all too silly to work. It is neither clever nor frightening. By that point, you, too, start to feel like you want to leave the movie’s world.
AFTERTASTE
Buddy is a film with a very memorable, creative premise, opening with 30 minutes that are wickedly unsettling and comic. Once the novelty wears off, the film loses steam quickly, and we are ready to change the channel.