Before we get Ayo Edebiri and Daniel Kaluuya’s take on an A24 Barney movie, a project that’s been in some various level of development hell for seven years, here comes Buddy. Like an off-brand ripoff from the 90s (anyone remember Ricky’s Room?), he’s another friendly, furry friend to wide-eyed young children, the main star of a TV show we’re thrown straight into, neatly styled to feel like we’re suddenly transported back to that era (similar to 2024’s far darker and far superior Sundance throwback I Saw the TV Glow).
The formula is familiar – lessons, singing, syllables overpronounced – but there’s something off. The persistence of Buddy, an orange unicorn with undying enthusiasm, is bordering on aggressive as his playful suggestion to dance suddenly devolves into something far more sinister. What if Buddy isn’t really our friend after all?
For the rare few who have seen 2002’s black comedy flop Death to Smoochy, the sight of a Barney-adjacent figure losing his temper might not be a novel surprise, but in Buddy we’re not just witnessing a temporary breakdown. Writer-director Casper Kelly, whose work has mostly been for Adult Swim, wants us to see him as a bold new horror icon, creating an elaborate universe centered around his power and influence (Buddy himself even turned up to last night’s midnight premiere). Is Buddy quite deserving of being so forcefully propelled into the spotlight? Not nearly.
The gimmick of Buddy, who stabs and decapitates with sunny disposition intact, is a basic joke that wears off far too quickly. The novelty of a malevolent presence in the wholesome, brightly lit world of a kids TV show can’t quite sustain an engaging 95-minute feature, Kelly not knowing where to take his admittedly attention-securing setup. As the kids in the show (led by If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’s Delaney Quinn) start to realise that Buddy is killing off those around them, they must figure out how to use the limited tools at their disposal to stay safe and escape. The film moves forward, episode-by-episode, before we’re taken out and sat with a confused parent in the real world, played by The Penguin’s Cristin Milioti, who, a la Julianne Moore in The Forgotten, is convinced she has a daughter who everyone else claims doesn’t exist.
It’s territory Milioti knows rather well, having slid between similar worlds in Black Mirror’s standout episode USS Callister, although any of Charlie Brooker’s suspense and intricately thought-out world-building is nowhere to be seen here. Buddy, voiced by Keegan Michael-Key, is never as monstrous or as sadistic as we expect he might be given the premise; there’s something weirdly restrained about what he does and how he does it (for all of his pleas to play, the film just isn’t playful enough). There are touches of something more gonzo (a scene of Buddy, flesh burning, groping the local nurse) but the kills are mostly ineffectively tame and boringly uninventive and even as Buddy inevitably transforms in the finale, the results are too tinny to scare anyone over the age of eight.
It’s moments like this, as we remain stuck in the world of the show, that make us question what we’re watching and who it’s for. With the overwhelming majority of the film set in a nauseatingly fake studio, complete with a Patton Oswalt-voiced backpack, it’s difficult to really take any of what happens seriously – what are the stakes, who are these characters, why should we care? – and as Kelly starts to merge the two realities, he also tries to force some emotional weight to something far too silly to carry it. With the poor child actors forced to stay in well-observed yet progressively grating Nickelodeon schtick, it’s hard to feel all that bothered about their survival.
History has taught us that this year’s Sundance will likely offer up at least one breakout horror, to be filed alongside Get Out, Hereditary, Saw and The Babadook, but Buddy is most certainly not it. Barney remains far more terrifying.
Buddy is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution
