What if… Barney the Dinosaur (you know, that beloved children’s mascot of the ’90s) were, in fact, a murderous psychopath? What if… the oversaturated playhouse studio set were a hellish, metaphysical prison that ensnared its anthropomorphised furniture and props in an ever-repeating episodic fever dream? What if… all those kids who find themselves living at this house had been kidnapped by the titular terror and forced to play out the episode’s ‘fun and games’ for eternity? The end result of this screenwriting game of ‘what if?’: Caspar Kelly’s Buddy, a humorous if imperfect take on how children’s media often walks a tightrope between harmless fun and uncanny nightmare.
The film begins by playing through a number of ‘episodes’, as if we’re watching some forgotten show on some equally esoteric cable channel at 1am, all presented in an analogue 4:3 aspect ratio with an overly garish colour palette. It’s Buddy! stars a bright orange unicorn (presumably played by a man in a costume) alongside a group of children as well as supporting characters like ‘Betty Bunny’ and ‘Mailman Miles’. Each episode features some feel-good lessons and sing-along moralising, reminiscent of any number of kids’ shows (Barney is the obvious influence, but shades of Sesame Street are also present).
But as the diegetic ‘reality’ of It’s Buddy! begins to fall apart – kids disappear, the credits glitch – we understand that not all is as it seems. The same suspicion is felt by one of the young children, Freddy (Delaney Quinn), who struggles to remember how and when she first arrived at Buddy’s house. In parallel to this, we are introduced to Cristin Milioti’s Grace, whose seemingly perfect family life in the suburbs alongside her husband (Topher Grace) and two boys similarly feels out of step, as if something, or perhaps someone, is missing.
Milioti’s performance is perhaps one of the strongest elements of the film, alongside its uncanny ability to recreate the tone and mise-en-scène of a non-existent kids’ show that legitimately feels as if it could have been seen in the 1990s. Keegan-Michael Key fits the part as the voice of Buddy, whilst Patton Oswalt and Michael Shannon also deliver excellent vocal performances as sidekick characters threatened by the unhinged unicorn’s wrath.
The fun and humour of Buddy are fundamentally in its ironic clash of children’s media with the blood and guts of a slasher. And yet, I found myself wanting it to take more risks; to be more explicit in its shock tactics. Given the precedent set in this mode by things like Happy Tree Friends, Terrifier 2‘s ‘Clown Café’ sequence, or seemingly carbon-copy but underseen precursors like The Banana Splits Movie or Mr. Crocket, Buddy feels relatively tame, unwilling or perhaps unable to fully commit to the bit. Indeed, some of the film’s most brutal moments are reserved for its adult characters when the kids are conveniently off-screen- damn those child actor safeguarding production practices! The film’s third act also hints at a larger mythology that could potentially be explored in sequels, but this feels rather perfunctory and ill-defined rather than being genuinely intriguing.
In essence, Buddy feels by the numbers, and whilst some interesting ideas are present, its brief 96-minute runtime still feels way too long for a premise that could have worked better as a short. Is it entertaining? Yes. Does it deliver on the full-blooded promise of its premise? Unfortunately, no; the monsters lurking beneath the brightly coloured costumes never fully come out to play.
