From the very first frame, Buddy pulls the audience into the world of “It’s Buddy,” a forgotten ’90s TV show starring an orange unicorn living in a magic land. It’s filled with (almost) familiar faces from favorite ’90s TV shows, including a talking backpack named Strappy (Patton Oswalt), the anthropomorphized Mr. Mailbox (Eric Bauza), and a very Thomas-looking Charlie the Train (Devon Hawkes Ludlow). And of course, there is a recurring cast of kids for Buddy (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key with Sergey Zhuravsky wearing the suit) and his friends to teach important life lessons through various songs. Buddy’s world is perfect—as long as everyone loves him and he can close out each episode with a hug and a song from the kids.
But of course, everything is not as perfect as it seems. When one kid (Luke Speakman) refuses to participate in a dance party, he conveniently decides to leave and is abruptly replaced by Hannah (Madison Skyy Polan). Two other children, Freddy (Delaney Quinn) and Wade (Caleb Williams), begin to suspect something is off with Buddy and soon discover the lengths Buddy will go to get his way. Freddy assumes the role of unofficial leader of the group and bands the children together to try to escape.
Buddy is an interesting look at abuse and manipulation, with Buddy going to extreme lengths to maintain an image of love and adoration, no matter the cost. He’s the only family these children have ever known and gaslights them into thinking he always has their best interests in mind. As the film goes on, the perfection of the park (Buddy’s home) and Buddy’s own facade start to falter, revealing more and more horrors.
The inspiration for Casper Kelly’s new film is clear; we’ve probably all felt slightly put off by a certain purple dinosaur hugging children, but Buddy takes an even darker approach than many of the real-life rumors ever did. Still, despite the dark subjects it invokes, Buddy manages above all to stay a comedy. Even many of the fights and death scenes are so over the top you can’t help but laugh. But it’s hard not to wish the film played off its source material even more, adding darker twists to its commentary. The juxtaposition of the nostalgic, sickeningly happy, colorful world over scenes of abuse and control is brilliant, but I can’t help but feel they couldn’t have packed an even harder punch if the filmmakers had dared to go there.
Instead, it seems the primary goal of the film is to unsettle audiences just enough to justify a homicidal unicorn, leaning into the completely absurd. While it’s hard not to wish Kelly would have taken more risks with this film, it is an impressive feature debut. Kelly has already proved himself an absurdist humor mastermind with his sketch Too Many Cooks and surrealist horror TV films like Adult Swim Yule Log, but Buddy shows he has a promising future in the comedic horror film scene.
