Buddy review
Casper Kelly fans…mount up.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Buddy
Directed by Casper Kelly
Written by Casper Kelly and Jamie King
Starring Delaney Quinn, Caleb Williams, Tristan Borders, Madison Skyy Polan, Christin Milioti, Topher Grace and Keegan-Michael Key
Buddy Review
Like many of us…I learned the name Casper Kelly when his Adult Swim short Too Many Cooks went viral. I still watch it probably once a year. It joins the One Man’s Trash episode of The Chris Gethard Show as pieces of media I just can’t go without for too long. They’re both on YouTube if you want to enjoy some genuinely unhinged comedic masterpieces. Since Cooks became a sensation I’ve followed Kelly’s career with great interest. Adult Swim Yule Log (AKA The Fireplace), Adult Swim Yule Log 2: Branchin’ Out, and the Fun Size segment of V/H/S/Halloween has seen Kelly’s output grow in recent years. And now…he brings us his first theatrical release, Buddy.
Too Many Cooks, the Yule Log movies and Fun Size are fine prep work for Buddy. The common thread is as obvious as it is strong. Whether it be cheesy vintage opening credits, a Christmas fireplace, Hallmark movies or trick or treating…Kelly is going to take something wholesome and turn it into a warped comedic nightmare. What better place to go next than a children’s television show? The concept isn’t new, of course. The puppet episode of Angel is over two decades old at this point. I’m sure that wasn’t the first time someone thought to do it…but it’s the furthest back I’m researching for this point. Monkey’s Magic Merry Go Round came out just three months ago. That children’s show nightmare focused on a Mr. Rogers style host. Kelly has no problem aiming his straight at a child cast.
Buddy begins with a series of short episodes of its fictional (in universe and out) children’s show. It’s a Barney the dinosaur type show…with a giant plush unicorn named Buddy at its heart. Four kids join him in the playhouse to learn lessons about bravery and cleaning and whatever else it is that these shows teach. There’s a talking backpack; there’s a talking mailbox and there are a couple of other human adult characters like a nurse and a mailman…the show mimics a real children’s show to a t. Except that Buddy is a monster. Everything is fine as long as you follow his lead and profess your love for him. Step out of line however, and he will have you replaced. And not in the “fired” kind of way.
But there is recasting. It doesn’t take long into Buddy for one of the kids to step out of line and defy Buddy’s lesson plan. A new child pops into the next episode like clockwork. The kids (and the human adults for that matter) have no memory of their previous life. And the world has no memory of them either. After watching three episodes of Buddy’s show…the movie cuts to widescreen and introduces us to a family in the real world. Grace (Christin Milioti) begins to feel like something is wrong. She can’t quite place it, but her memories seem to be missing something. And she has caught a glimpse of that dancing, singing unicorn show on TV despite being unable to find any evidence of it existing on the internet.
Buddy is exactly as darkly funny as you expect it to be. The twisted children’s show begins to fly off the handle and into bloody territory when the child stars suspect that something bad has happened to the kid who didn’t want to dance in the first “episode” we watch of the show. It sets off a chain of events that leaves them searching for a way to survive an increasingly demented unicorn host. Most of Buddy is spent inside that children’s nightmare world. The second half of it is spent looking for an escape.
If you have any familiarity with Kelly’s work…you know that Buddy is a unique kind of fun. No one is safe, of course…so be prepared to lose some kids along the way. It’s all done in that fun dark-hearted manner that highlights all of Kelly’s stuff. Clint Howard shows up as the human component of a Howdy Doody style puppet act at one point and nothing has ever felt more natural and in the right place. That’s the kind of feeling we’re talking about in Buddy.
There’s also an emotional side to it. Milioti’s Grace follows her feeling down a path that shows how far a mother will go for their child…even if they can’t actually remember their existence. It almost feels like it’s out of a different movie. Too grounded and normal for a Casper Kelly story. Maybe this was his way of making a theatrical release more relatable. Maybe this was just how he chose to show the separation between worlds. Either way, Milioti makes it work. What initially feels like a detour eventually becomes a compelling aspect of Buddy’s story.
The child actors deserve a shoutout here too. They have to play multiple versions of their characters. The sunny smiling automatons that follow Buddy’s every movie…and the desperate terrified survivors trying to outpace a murderous plush unicorn. Yeah…it’s exactly as good as sounds.
Scare Value
Anyone who’s seen Casper Kelly’s work will know what to expect from Buddy. That doesn’t make it any less fun to watch. Kelly has a way of seeing the darkness in light and then finding the light inside that darkness. Buddy is a perfect fit for Kelly’s specific brand of horror comedy. It’s darkly funny and darkly…dark. And surprisingly moving while also just being a damned entertaining take on a twisted kids show. Basically, it’s what you expect…and that’s a good thing.
4/5
Buddy Link
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