In this surreal and eerie film, a magical unicorn named Buddy holds children hostage in his TV-show dimension. Throughout the movie, the audience is increasingly aware of Buddy’s demented nature — what began with a seemingly fuzzy, cuddly unicorn who wants everybody to have fun quickly developed into a violent monster hiding behind an innocent and comforting facade.
“Buddy” is a great example of the development of the horror genre. From classic horror movies like “The Ring”, “The Conjuring”, “The Exorcist”, the genre has taken new strides in these past years. We’ve developed into far more interesting and, in my opinion, more frightening psychological films and strayed away from the strictly paranormal and serial killer-esque movies of the past.
Time Magazine touches on Director Casper Kelly’s inspiration on the concept of Buddy — the TV show Barney, which first premiered on PBS in 1992. This comes as no surprise of course, Buddy is an orange unicorn, Barney is a purple dinosaur — you can connect the dots. What’s interesting is the connection between Barney and the surreal horror that’s portrayed in “Buddy”.
Kelly is quoted by Time saying that Barney “disturbed” him, commenting that the children acting in Barney caused him unease, almost as if they were brainwashed, stuck in this TV dimension against their will. The disturbance that Kelly felt gave us Buddy, a product of both the real world and the director’s imagination.
Photo credit: IMDb.com
Within the TV dimension, the visuals take on a nostalgic feel, with highly saturated colors and a grainy image, reminiscent of a 1990s kids show. During the violent scenes within the TV dimension, the filmmakers involved made an interesting choice in how to portray gore, with clearly over exaggerated blood splatter and unrealistic blood stains. This specific choice is incredibly intriguing — not only is the violence portrayed towards the beginning of the movie unrealistic, but it changes throughout the film.
As Buddy becomes more horrifying, more antagonistic, the gore becomes more realistic as well. In the first death of the film, a little boy who doesn’t want to dance, the violence that Buddy inflicts onto him is done off screen, as if to shield the viewers from the horror.
As the movie continues, more and more gore and death is shown on screen, and in turn the horrors of Buddy’s personality is increasingly prominent. Almost as if when Buddy begins to expose the true monster inside of him the monsters of the real world, of real violence and death, are exposed as well.
The film gained depth as the mother, Grace (Cristin Milioti), of one of the kidnapped children, Freddy (Delaney Quinn), begins to realize something is missing. The children held hostage in the TV dimension had all their family and friends’ memories of them erased, their rooms replaced with offices, their belongings nowhere to be found.
When Grace contracts an empty, terrifying feeling from Freddy’s empty chair at the dinner table, she lets out a guttural scream that brings the viewer deeper into the immersion of the film. The plot, from this moment forward, becomes sharper, distinct, and really takes shape in this new world of horror we have been seeing lately.
The switch between the nostalgic look of the TV dimension to the real-life quality of the real world, and the eventual fusion of the two was incredibly interesting and unique.
If you like the terrified, not able to sleep feeling that movies like Smile and Hereditary bring, this film won’t give it to you. Its artistic and almost comedic nature doesn’t allow for those jump-scare, on the edge of my seat moments, but it’s worth the watch. The creative direction as well as the concept presents a rare type of film that will be remembered for its distinctiveness.
