Writer/director Casper Kelly's wildly demented creepfest, Buddy, takes a bloody stab at satirizing gooey children's television programming like Barney and Teletubbies by crossing those genres with the psycho-horror of slasher movies like Chucky or M3GAN.
Kelly's colorfully trippy movie is set in the world of the eponymous character, an orange unicorn (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key) who leads a small group of children, led by the gritty Freddy (Delaney Quinn), through a variety of inane activities, accompanied by cloyingly trite kiddie tunes, most of which in praise of Buddy.
Young Josh (Luke Speakman) refusing to take part one day sets Buddy off on a murderous spree of vengeance and control. He must be loved and obeyed!
Act II in this freewheeling nightmare features Cristin MIlioti and Topher Grace as parents Grace and Ben, who are challenged by Grace's feelings of dreadful menace, eventually revealed to be connected to Buddy.
Kelly brings the two worlds together in a manner that audience members will either go with or not -- and I believe that is by design. In fact, the entire surreal experiment in storytelling is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.
The film's outlandishly loopy story will undoubtedly reveal more about the folks who embrace its lunacy than about the world and characters it has created.
On that point, it struck me more than once that the rebellion against Buddy's carrot-colored control is a welcome metaphor for these times of social/cultural/political manipulation and fabrication.
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