Many years ago, there was an extreme backlash against the kids show Barney & Friends for being too cheerful and upbeat. Part of that backlash was a preponderance of jokes about the cheerful singing purple dinosaur somehow revealing a dark side, terrorizing the children trapped with him in his soundstage home. Those jokes now reach their final form with Buddy, the deranged comedy-horror hybrid directed by Casper Kelly, perhaps most famous for the viral Adult Swim short Too Many Cooks.
Too Many Cooks derived much of its comedy and its horror from the perversion of wholesome TV sitcom opening credits, and that’s very much the mode Buddy also operates in. Starring Keegan-Michael Key as the voice of its titular character, the movie immediately plunges the viewer into the rigorously authentic world of a human-sized dancing and singing orange unicorn. In Buddy’s world, the mailbox talks, a Worry Well grants wishes, and children get to learn lessons about friendship and cleanliness… as long as they don’t challenge Buddy in any way.
Kelly keeps us immersed in Buddy’s world from the beginning, letting multiple episodes of this series play out (complete with opening and closing credits). As cheerful and happy as the tone might be, though, things keep getting darker and darker — especially as children start disappearing and their replacements arrive with no memory of where they came from.
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The whole movie does not take place inside Buddy’s world, though explaining that further would take us firmly into spoiler territory. What can be said, though, is that stripped of all the meta qualities involved, Buddy‘s story is a very simple one — it just takes a few shifts of reality for the full picture to come into focus.
In fact, figuring out what the hell is going on is maybe one of the movie’s chiefest pleasures, a well-constructed puzzle box that does eventually reveal… maybe not everything. But enough for all the pieces to come together for what ends up being a pretty emotional story, one that’s even touching at certain points.
A big factor in Buddy‘s impact is the execution, especially as the movie pushes further into unexplored territory. Huge credit is due to the stellar production design by Anna Kathleen, cinematography by Zach Kuperstein, and the puppetry team, who all navigate various levels of reality with apparent ease, grounding every scene in a way that speaks to Kelly’s understanding of playing with genre. The best parodies, sometimes, are the ones that hit a little too close to home.
Buddy (Roadside Attractions)
Buddy also benefits from some extremely well-cast child actors, especially Delaney Quinn as Freddy, who eventually evolves into the movie’s protagonist. Additionally, Cristin Milioti plays a key role that makes excellent use of her past experience with pocket universes (shoutout to the excellent Black Mirror “Callister” episodes). Her gifts as an actor really come out in the way she navigates the various levels of reality involved here.
The movie also features a strikingly good voice cast, from Key’s goofy/chilling work as Buddy to Patton Oswalt as a talking backpack named Strappy, Michael Shannon as a ventriloquist’s dummy named Willie, and modern-day Looney Tunes journeyman Eric Bauza in multiple roles. (Also look out for Bauza’s work in Coyote vs. Acme, also premiering the same weekend as Buddy.)
This is not Kelly’s first feature-length production — amongst other projects, he directed Adult Swim Yule Log and Adult Swim Yule Log 2: Branchin’ Out, stealth horror movies released by the Cartoon Network offshoot for the holidays. In terms of scale, though, this is by far his biggest production, and it’s fascinating to see the ways he translates his very specific storytelling approach to a larger framework.
Where Buddy falters is in finding a deeper meaning with its satire of children’s television — the movie’s post-modern descent into madness is certainly entertaining, but once the shock value of bright poppy characters committing dark acts wears off, there’s a craving for more understanding as to why we find these sorts of riffs so disturbing.
Although this aspect of Buddy does reveal the difference between a viral video goof and a truly resonant feature film, there’s no denying that the movie also represents a massive step up for Kelly as a filmmaker. Seeing how he moves forward in his career is going to be fascinating, especially if he applies his aesthetic boldness to a more resonant narrative. Whatever comes next, it’ll definitely keep us guessing.
Buddy bounds into theaters with a song on Friday, August 28th. Check out the trailer below.