BUDDY
****
Directed by Caspar Kelly.
Starring Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Keegan-Michael Key.
Horror Comedy, US, 95 Minutes.
Reviewed as part of Tubi FrightFest 2026
You remember Buddy, don’t you? The kids show with the orange unicorn from the late 90’s? He was big, orange and fuzzy and would sing songs with the kids about how it was nice to be nice. And of course you remember Mr. Mailbox, and Strappy the cheeky back pack? Or how when Buddy would get upset with any of the kids he would smother them to death, or take an axe to them if he was really ticked off?
Writer and director Caspar Kelly, infamous already for his Adult Swim short TOO MANY COOKS, which skewered and twisted the banal setting of US sitcom credit sequences into something troubling and bloody, tackles the world of kids television, already disquieting with its day-glo coloured and ultra positive atmosphere. His titular creation, ruling over a TV studio set of a suburban house where a small group of children, led by the increasingly suspicious Freddy, is an equally strange and troubling commentary on a seemingly innocuous and prevalent piece of the 21st century media landscape.
At first the film's structure is repetitive, capturing us in the sickly sweet atmosphere of Buddy’s own personal and Hellish playground. Using the trick of repetition until something isn’t funny until it somehow becomes even funnier works especially well here, paying off in great fashion when the kids realise what exactly is going on.
How far Kelly stretches his premise, and how dark he makes it, is a large part of what makes BUDDY so successful and entertaining. Also striking is how Buddy, with his orange appearance, thin skin, petty nature and creepy, predatory attitude to his female staff when he is alone with them is quite reminiscent of a certain leader of the Western world. Expertly voiced by Jordan Peele’s former comedy partner Keegan Michael-Key, Buddy is one of the year's most distinctive characters in horror cinema this year.
Ambitious and entertaining, the film slightly gets bogged down in its latter stages, before ramping back up to deliver an effective and affecting final act with some surprisingly haunting imagery. For anyone, especially unwillingly subjected parents, who wished grievous bodily harm on the likes of Barney and the Teletubbies, BUDDY is the subversive tonic you have been looking for. But, like TOO MANY COOKS before it, just be prepared to have the theme tune bouncing around your skull for the weeks and months after watching it.
Iain MacLeod