WHAT’S IT ABOUT

Buddy is a 2026 American horror-comedy film directed by Casper Kelly that follows a group of amnesiac children trapped inside a surreal, 1990s-style children’s television show who must escape their tyrannical, bloodthirsty orange unicorn host

MOVIESinMO REVIEW

If you grew up Gen X or millennial, you heard a “kill Barney” joke at some point. Somebody on the playground probably twisted that “I Love You” song into something foul, and everybody fell out laughing. That purple dinosaur claimed he came straight out of kids’ imaginations, yet a whole lot of folks couldn’t stand him from day one. That kind of hate is strange, and Hollywood peeped it. Death to Smoochy took a swing at it back in 2002 and only connected halfway. Buddy grabs that same energy and drags it somewhere way darker. Director Casper Kelly, who co-wrote the script with Jamie King, flips the whole joke on its head. What if all them haters were right? What if the mascot wasn’t some dude sweating in a costume, but something that ain’t human at all? And what if, the whole time folks were cracking jokes about killing him, he was the one killing kids who stepped out of line? Here’s a rundown on Buddy the Unicorn, a bright orange dude that’s got a heart on his chest and a smile that should make you nervous. He’s voiced by Keegan-Michael Key, and Sergey Zhuravsky is in the costume. The big news is Key’s performance: he switches from a silly kinda character to a scaring the socks off you type of behavior in no time. Buddy ain’t well-known like a character called Barney. He’s a character who’s quite close to something known as creepypasta; an old story everybody seems to have heard about once or twice. That’s because the series called “It’s Buddy!” is yet to be produced. There’s a realm settled beyond our dimension called Buddy’s realm. It’s good, but the no-camera thing doesn’t do good things for Buddy. Every episode ends, the credits roll, and the next episode picks up the action exactly from the same point. The kids on the show don’t even realize they’re trapped. They’re like a frog chilling in a pot while the water slowly boils. Then Josh (Luke Speakman) says no to a dance party, a bit lifted straight from the Barney playbook, and Buddy snaps. Once the blood dries, Buddy hides the mess and slips in a new castmate, Hannah (Madison Skyy Polan), to keep everybody distracted. But something feels off, and Freddy (Delaney Quinn) and Wade (Caleb “CJ” Williams) start questioning everything around them. Quinn is the backbone of this movie without any doubt. She takes it on herself to simply support the movie to the end like a true hero. Freddy is not just a wimp waiting for someone to show up and rescue her. Instead, she is observant enough to notice the little things around her and curious enough to ask questions that make everyone think about them. Thanks to Quinn, we can believe in Freddy’s attributes very well. On the other hand, in the “real” world, there is Grace (Cristin Milioti) who is struggling with her sleep. She strongly believes that she has a daughter nobody knows about, while her husband Ben (Topher Grace) thinks she is going mad. Milioti really puts a lot of emotion into playing the role. Nevertheless, there comes a time when she sees Buddy on her TV screen. The smartest move Kelly makes is not splitting time evenly between the two worlds. We only touch reality for a minute, so you ain’t stuck sweating the rules. His second-smartest move is refusing to just swap a dinosaur for a unicorn and call it a day. Buddy’s house has talking furniture that feels borrowed from Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Freddy’s backpack, Strappy (Patton Oswalt), plays like a jumpy, English-only version of Dora’s Backpack. There are sly nods to Hee Haw, Blue’s Clues, and more. Put together, the show feels like an old VHS tape that got recorded over with better-remembered kids’ shows. That’s top-tier world-building, and it turns your stomach in the best way. The creepiest stretch don’t even belong to Buddy. It belongs to George (Clint Howard) and his old marionette pal Willie, voiced by Michael Shannon. George was a kid from an earlier version of the show who never found the exit and just grew up out there in the woods. Those two scenes stuck in my head way longer than any of Buddy’s corn-syrup rampages. Learning that Buddy is a danger to grown folks too adds another nasty little twist. Now here’s what I have a problem with, Kelly creates this amazing world and then does nothing with it. This is the same guy who did Too Many Cooks, where a running joke runs until it becomes bizarrely funny to watch. What works with that format can’t really carry a full-length feature. Man, those therapist scenes take forever! The psychic stuff gets boring, and the time travel gets all jumbled up. Plus, this movie never explains where Buddy came from and why he is like this. It’s like going to a restaurant that spends all its money on lights, music, and decoration and rushes you through the food. But when Buddy works, it really hits! There are parts that made me laugh out loud, and the movie goes places where no horror movie would ever go, including eliminating people you already thought were safe. Also, for the Midwest people like me, this movie was filmed in Cleveland which gives it some credibility. If you expected a normal horror movie, well then this is your warning: you are going to be dissatisfied. But if you don’t mind seeing something weird, I assure you, the whole experience will be cool.

OUR RATING – A BAD BARNEY-ISH 6.5