Film: Buddy
Director: Casper Kelly
Released: August 28, 2026 (USA)
Rating: R
Runtime: 1h 35m
Genre: Horror Comedy
Distributor: Roadside Attractions
Starring: Cristin Milioti · Keegan-Michael Key
⚠️ This Is Not a Children’s Film
It needs saying plainly, because stories have circulated about parents taking young children to screenings on the assumption that a bright orange singing unicorn meant a family movie.
Buddy is rated R. It’s a horror film about children trapped in a kids’ TV show with something that wants to hurt them, and it goes to violent places. The cheerful marketing is the joke. Do not take your kids.
HorrorComedySurrealSlasherNostalgia HorrorPractical EffectsAdult SwimIndie1990sChildren’s TVMetaA24-Adjacent Weird
88%Rotten Tomatoes
76%Fandango
7/10IMDb
$20M+Domestic Box Office
$3MReported Budget
🦄 Know this first: Buddy plays by the rules of the show it’s parodying, and that’s why it works. There’s no giant CGI monster waiting in act three. Everything the unicorn does, he does with what a 1990s children’s programme could plausibly contain — and the restraint is the scariest thing about it.
⚖️ The Discipline Is the Horror
The easy version of this film exists, and it’s worse. You take a Barney-style kids’ show, let the mascot turn evil, and in the final act he transforms into some enormous digital creature so the climax can feel “big.”
Casper Kelly doesn’t do that. As one reviewer who visited the set put it, Buddy never pushes past what would be acceptable inside its own world — “it’s not cheating.” Everything Buddy has access to inside a 1990s children’s television programme, he can and will use to hurt someone. But the film never exaggerates what he could do, or what he could look like.
That discipline does two things. It keeps the parody honest, and it keeps the fear grounded — because the threat stays the size of your childhood memory rather than ballooning into a generic monster.
It’s backed up by how the film was made: practical sets, practical costumes, terrific makeup, and almost everything captured in camera — which, for a movie this surreal, is a genuinely impressive achievement.
Clean up. Sing along. Don’t stop smiling.
Kids repeating the same songs, the same lessons, the same tidy-up routine every single day. Now imagine you’re a real person, and you can’t leave.
Buddy is a surreal horror comedy from Casper Kelly — the writer behind the legendary Adult Swim short Too Many Cooks — in which a group of children are trapped inside a 1990s children’s television programme hosted by a cheerful orange unicorn who is, it turns out, a great deal worse than he appears.
It opened on August 28 through Roadside Attractions and has been one of the year’s genuine success stories: a reported $3 million budget that has passed $20 million domestically, from an opening weekend of $5.36 million across just 1,258 theatres. Critics agree — it sits at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Our verdict: it’s one of the most inventive horror films of the year, and one of the few that’s actually funny while it’s frightening you.
The Concept Is the Whole Trick
Anyone who grew up on Barney & Friends or Bear in the Big Blue House has probably had the thought before: there’s something deeply strange about that format. The relentless cheer. The same songs. The same lessons. The same tidy-up, every single episode, forever.
Buddy’s premise takes that observation and turns the screw: what if you were a real person inside that loop, and you couldn’t get out? The repetition that’s comforting to a four-year-old becomes a prison when you’re aware of it.
📺 4:3 and Standard Def
The film commits to the boxy aspect ratio and the soft, degraded look of old videotape.
🎵 Genuinely Catchy Songs
Which makes them considerably worse once the context curdles.
🔀 Aspect Ratio Shifts
The frame itself becomes a storytelling tool as the film moves between worlds.
🌍 The Real World
A parallel storyline outside the show gives the whole thing stakes and a mystery.
The Cast Does the Heavy Lifting
🎭 Cristin Milioti Anchors It
Cristin Milioti plays Grace, a mother who begins to realise something is wrong with her life — that something is missing. She draws consistent praise as the film’s emotional centre, and she’s the reason the real-world half of the story lands rather than feeling like a device to explain the horror.
Keegan-Michael Key voices Buddy himself, which is inspired casting — the same warmth that makes a children’s presenter comforting is exactly what makes one terrifying when it doesn’t switch off.
The child performances are the quiet achievement. Getting good work out of young actors is hard at the best of times, and harder still when the material requires them to spend most of the shoot in a state of fear. Reviewers who’ve seen the film — and at least one who watched them work on set — single them out as excellent.
Around them: Topher Grace as Ben, Michael Shannon as Charlie the Train, and Clint Howard in a small but memorable role as George.
Made by Hand
🎬 An In-Camera Movie
For a film this strange, the production approach is worth dwelling on. Buddy was built from practical sets, practical costumes and heavy makeup work, and captured almost exclusively in camera.
A reviewer who spent a day on set reported that what they watched being filmed looks essentially identical in the finished movie — which is about as direct a compliment as you can pay a production. There’s no layer of post-production smoothing over the seams, because the seams were built right the first time.
Shot by cinematographer Zach Kuperstein and cut by Josh Ethier, it’s a film where the texture — the videotape softness, the cramped frame, the too-bright set dressing — is doing as much work as the script.
Who This Is Actually For
🌙 Adult Swim at Three in the Morning
The most useful description of Buddy’s sensibility comes from a reviewer who knows Kelly’s background: this is exactly the sort of thing that would have turned up on Adult Swim at 3am and quietly rearranged your evening.
That’s a recommendation and a warning in the same breath. If you loved Too Many Cooks — its patience, its escalating wrongness, its willingness to sit inside a format until the format breaks — you already know whether this is your film.
If surreal comedy-horror isn’t your register, the same qualities that make Buddy brilliant may read as merely odd. The audience score sits a notch below the critical one — 76% on Fandango against 88% on Rotten Tomatoes — which is roughly what you’d expect from a film with a very particular sense of humour and a very broad marketing hook.
It’s also worth saying the film has become a lore magnet. Audiences have been picking apart the ending, the backstories and the implications online since release, which is its own kind of endorsement.
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
| The Good |
The Bad |
The Ugly |
| A Premise That Earns Its ReputationChildren trapped in the endless loop of a 1990s kids’ show is a genuinely ingenious idea, and the film understands why the format is unsettling rather than just pointing at it. |
A Very Specific Sense of HumourBuddy’s register is late-night Adult Swim surrealism. If that isn’t your thing, the film’s best qualities may land as simply strange — and the audience score sitting below the critics’ reflects that gap. |
People Really Did Take Children to See ItWhether the viral stories are accurate or not, the confusion was real enough to spread. A bright unicorn on the poster and an R rating on the ticket is a collision waiting to happen. |
| Restraint as a Horror ToolNo giant CGI finale. Buddy only ever does what a 1990s children’s show could contain — which keeps the parody honest and the threat human-sized. It’s the smartest decision in the film. |
The Format Demands PatienceThe repetition that makes the concept work is, by design, repetitive. It’s doing something deliberate, but it asks you to sit inside the loop before it starts breaking it. |
It Goes PlacesThis is an R-rated horror film that uses everything a kids’ show could plausibly contain to hurt people. It’s played with wit, but it is not gentle. |
| Cristin MiliotiThe emotional anchor, playing a mother who senses something missing from her own life. She makes the real-world half matter instead of just explaining the horror. |
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| Built by HandPractical sets, costumes and makeup, shot almost entirely in camera. Someone who watched it being filmed says the finished film looks like what was on the stage that day. That’s rare. |
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The Verdict
Buddy is the kind of film that shouldn’t work as well as it does. Nostalgia horror is a crowded lane, and “beloved children’s character is actually evil” has been done often enough to be a punchline in itself. What separates this one is that Casper Kelly is interested in the format, not just the mascot.
The 4:3 frame, the tape-degraded image, the songs that are actually good, the endless cheerful repetition — those aren’t decoration, they’re the engine. And the decision to keep Buddy inside the rules of his own show, rather than unleashing a digital monster in act three, is the choice that elevates the whole thing. It stays scary because it stays plausible.
It’s also very funny, which is much harder to pull off alongside genuine dread than it looks. Cristin Milioti gives the film a heart, Keegan-Michael Key gives it a voice you’ll have trouble shaking, and the child actors carry more of it than child actors usually can.
The honest read: if you have any affection for Adult Swim’s brand of escalating wrongness, this is essential. If you don’t, it’s still a well-made, inventive horror film that respects its own rules — just expect to spend some of the runtime wondering what on earth you’re watching, which is rather the point.
And to be absolutely clear one more time: leave the children at home.
For more reviews, check out our full reviews section.
Score Breakdown
Practical Craft & In-Camera Work9.0/10
Restraint & Internal Logic9.0/10
Keegan-Michael Key as Buddy8.5/10
Tone Balance (Funny vs Frightening)8.5/10
Final Score
8.5/10
Buddy — Dir. Casper Kelly
It stays scary because it never cheats
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