Running Time: 95 Minutes
Starring: Cristin Milioti, Topher Grace, Delaney Quinn, Caleb Williams, Clint Howard, Keegan-Michael Key, Michael Shannon, Patton Oswalt, Sergey Zhuravsky
Across his career, Casper Kelly has gifted audiences surreal slices of terror such as Too Many Cooks, the Adult Swim Yule Log films, and the intersection of Scooby-Doo and The Blair Witch Project that was known as The Scooby-Doo Project. After delivering a gleefully gruesome short in last year's V/H/S/Halloween, Kelly makes his theatrical debut with Buddy, a feature which brings the horror to a Barney the Dinosaur style mascot.
The film opens with a black screen, while whispers and wails are heard in the void. It's a creepy start before an intro appears that puts on a happy guise, as children are seen cheerfully playing within a house that contains sentient furniture, surrounded by joyous residents. Central to all of this is Buddy (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key), an orange unicorn who can be summoned by calling his name out loud. It's an innocent start where the kids are invited to a dance party and learn a song about being brave. Everybody wants to take part, with the exception of Josh (Luke Speakman), who would rather sit alone reading his book despite Buddy's attempts to have him join in. All appears well, as the characters dance and then sing as the credits roll, until Freddy (Delaney Quinn) spies Josh's bloodstained book in the bin.
Working off a screenplay co-written with Jamie King, Casper Kelly replicates the feeling of '90s era children's shows to depict an underlying darkness beneath the colourful and cheery exteriors. The visual style is replicated courtesy of fantastic production design and costuming, yet this is not a nostalgic trip as an unsettling feeling lingers in the air. Sharp turns are taken into horror, with matters growing more unsettling as childhood innocence becomes lost. Key to that is Delaney Quinn's impressive performance, anchoring the film as she conveys discovering terror within this seemingly perfect reality.
Dreams are shattered by this brutal life, as lurking underneath the happy façade is a spectre of fear. Morals about kindness and sharing are all a smokescreen to how people wish to appease the monster, in the hopes that bowing to it will spare one from its wrath. There is a real menace to the titular character, as Keegan-Michael Key's vocals and Sergey Zhuravsky's physical performance convey terror that helps sell this film's nasty edge. Be warned, even children are not spared. It's also notable how this follows an orange antagonist with a distinctive yellow hairstyle in a position of power, whose actions put children in danger and leave women sexually assaulted in the name of his tyrannical rule.
This would make for a strong work in its own right, but there is a bizarre need to look outside of that reality. A subplot tries establishing how Buddy's world fits into a reality like our own, and it feels like an unneeded answer to a question that nobody asked. The phenomenally expressive Cristin Milioti plays a mother who starts believing that their family is missing a daughter, while Topher Grace is lumbered with a thankless role of sarcastic quips which have gained sentience to become an unhelpful husband. It feels like an unnecessary element to pad out the runtime to feature length, which is unfortunate as what's around the film is worth your time. By the end, one wonders if anybody can truly be okay if they survive this terror. Buddy offers thrills, laughs, and terror within an experimental narrative.
Buddy made its UK Premiere at FrightFest 2026
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