Our greatest nightmares might include having dreams about fictitious mascots that are supposed to help us with life lessons as a child. But the nightmare eventually collapses beneath our feet when the mascot wants us to be their friend forever and ever and ever. Casper Kelly is very fascinated with the belief that a children’s mascot can help change the trajectory of an adolescent mind, and he tries really hard to break free of that surrealist belief. Buddy is both a metacommentary on the industry of children’s television and what it imposes on parents and the kids who watch it. It’s also a silly ass slasher film about a colorful mascot who wants to feed off of the children trapped inside of Buddy’s Playland.
Switching back to Casper Kelly as a director, he’s most familiar with the creation of the short film Too Many Cooks, a surrealist concept involving a family trapped inside a parody of classic sitcom aesthetics. Buddy aims to do the same thing by involving itself in a series of episodes of It’s Buddy. The show inside the film is played off like a knockoff Barney episode, with each episode ending in a fun lesson spiel from Buddy himself and a tight hug for the kids in the playland. What the audience in this film doesn’t know early on is that something is off. Buddy (Keegan-Michael Key) is too cheery every time he introduces a new lesson. The kids in each episode start to question his motives and how he constantly changes plans in the middle of the episode. And then something violent happens to one of the cast members in the show, and that’s when the film truly shows its true colors.
While yes, this film stretches all aspects of the concept of having kids stuck in a television show that they can’t escape from, I do think this film playfully goes hard on the concept through typical slasher scares and fantasy surrealism. Cristin Milioti, who plays Grace, is searching for her lost child in the midst of Buddy’s terror on TV. Her character stumbles upon Buddy on the TV and finds a way to reach out to him, long past the establishment of Buddy’s way of killing off the kids on TV. Cristin Milioti is the glue that sticks this film together, along with Keegan-Michael Key’s voiceover work for Buddy. Together, they offer a synergy that character actors die for when they reach their own aura as actors.
Where this film goes further into its revelations behind Buddy’s past is something that can’t be spoiled here. I will say that all of the performances from the young actors in this are pretty great. In fact, the “annoying” child performance works in its favor due to the film having two modes. One mode is the way the film constantly moves through each episode of It’s Buddy like there are hidden contextual clues that need to be solved by the audience. And the children in the TV show have to constantly question themselves about how to defeat Buddy if, Buddy controls every aspect of the show itself. That causes the kids to act irrationally or out of control, which makes the annoying children feel more real and consequential in their actions. Of course, this film relishes the classic 80s slasher trope of having one death be completely obvious the moment a child opens their mouth in the It’s Buddy TV show.
Another mode is following Grace and her belief that Buddy is everywhere long after he leaves the TV when each episode ends. You the audience are really in for the ride of Grace’s journey into finding herself and her child. And again, Cristin Milioti gives a great performance in this. I wish as an actor she had more opportunities ever since her heel turn in The Penguin. I was pleasantly surprised by the practical designs and set work in this film too. It really captures the essence of those children’s TV shows that had psychedelic imagery and color coordination. Barney and Pee-wee’s Playhouse are two shows you can compare when it comes to the set design in this film.
While I do think Casper Kelly stretches this concept a bit too far out in the near third act of the film, I was still invested in the chaos that Buddy brought to the table. By the end of the film, you are actually going to want to get all the merchandise of Buddy and you’ll also believe that he could potentially be a Fortnite character long after the film comes out. He’s going to be iconic and the illest slasher character creation in quite a while, probably since Art the Clown in those Terrifier films.
This review was Executive Produced by Dan Schneider.