Final Rating: 4/5
In Buddy, a TV show for preteen kids is reimagined as an extradimensional prison overseen by a narcissistic host in a bright orange unicorn costume. Director Casper Kelly’s slasher film effectively blends 90s nostalgia with surreal horror, with great performances from a group of child actors.
Buddy opens on a 1999 TV show called “It’s Buddy!” An uncanny parody of Barney & Friends and Peewee’s Playhouse, the show features a cast of kids and adults, a large bunny named Bunny, and several talking pieces of furniture. In each episode, when the kids arrive at a teachable moment, everyone says “Oh, Buddy!” to summon the titular orange unicorn himself.
Buddy (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key) is happy to teach kids about the world in return for their love and admiration. But whenever he doesn’t get his way, Buddy gets pushy. At first, it’s just peer pressure: a kid doesn’t want to dance, but Buddy wants to teach him, so he keeps goading him.
With each episode, however, Buddy gets angrier, and cast members keep getting replaced. Before long, the kids decide to escape into the woods rather than keep subjecting themselves to Buddy’s moods. A decision which makes Buddy very angry.
As the set grows more obviously dangerous, the question arises how anyone would wind up on this set to begin with. Buddy answers this through a segment in the “real world,” in which Grace (Cristin Miloti), a married mother of two boys, starts to suspect that she has a third child whom nobody remembers. When Grace sees the show on a TV briefly, it’s at a point where Buddy is talking directly to the viewer; directly to her. She attempts to research the show only to find there’s no information on it anywhere.
Seen in passing, “It’s Buddy” is mostly harmless. Something a parent wouldn’t think twice about their child watching. Taken as a whole, however, the show is unnerving. The show is a world where adults are faux authority figures, available to kids but powerless to actually do anything. Buddy himself is like a vampire, he must be invited in via his catchphrase, and there’s often an enticing enough reason for someone to do so. Once he’s arrived, he always gets his way, and he can’t leave until the credits roll.
The children are trapped there after responding to Buddy’s invite. A show on TV prompting its audience of unattended children while parents were off doing something else. While its trappings are decidedly 90s, Buddy pokes at timeless fears about the media children consume without their parents’ knowledge. Or perhaps, their parents knowing little more than that their kids are watching something made for children – one that even has an early childhood educator as a consultant.
Through mindless engagement, those children are then swallowed up by media that literally erases them from existence. Again, Buddy builds on a paranoia of media consumption “rotting brains,” robbing children of the possibility of adulthood.
Buddy features phenomenal performances, especially from its child actors. Caleb Williams makes an impression early on as Wade, the token black child who first notices Buddy acting strangely. Tristan Broders and Madison Skyy Polan turn in memorable performances as Oliver, a goody two shoes occasionally too quick to turn to adults for help, and Hannah, a nice girl who “feels like she’s known Buddy her whole life” despite being the newest cast member.
The standout is Delaney Quinn as Freddy, Grace’s missing daughter and Buddy’s “final girl” character. Freddy is headstrong and too kind for her own good, often running straight into danger to save others from Buddy. She insists on bringing Mr. Mailbox and Strappy the Backpack, two non-human victims of the unicorn’s wrath, along as she and her friends try to find a way out.
She also remains more charitable to Buddy than she should, even to the end. An early piece of advice he gives her becomes her mantra, repeated throughout the movie: “you have to be scared to be brave.”
Buddy sells itself with a premise of “what if your favourite kids show growing up was actually evil?” Casper Kelly takes that idea and uses it for so much more. Buddy incorporates a fully fleshed out show that builds on what makes shows like Barney so enticing to their audience, adding a horror twist that isn’t subtle, but sneaks up on you. What’s more, it uses that format to build compelling social commentary while also being a solid slasher.
