Make Children Innocent Again: Buddy (2026)
I won't lie to you I'm a very controlling rule driven person, I spiral quickly if things don't go according to plan but I will find a way to ride it out without catastrophically crashing out avoiding friendly casualties to the best of my abilities, this can't be said for children tv show mascot Buddy the magical unicorn.
After Josh refuses to join in a dance party Buddy has to take things into his own hands resulting in Josh's sudden disappearance, Freddy a young girl of the children's show cast finds Josh's book with blood on it in the trash and begins to question Buddy's story of Josh leaving to become a dancer. As Freddy and some of her fellow castmates watch Buddy breakdown they know they need to escape before they become Buddy's next victims but little do they know there'ssomething strange about Buddy's world that won't let them leave so easily.
Director Caspar Kelly's (of Too Many Cooks fame) Buddy is a conceptual slam dunk for his style of work, an homage to the 90s children tv shows pushed to its limits until we cross over into the uncanny, the first 15 minutes of the film literally play out like a couple episodes of Buddy's tv show but then Buddy snaps resulting in multiple deaths as the remaining children flee to Diamond City in hopes of finding help. Then the film introduces Grace a young mother of 2 who is slipping into a psychological crisis where she swears they have one more child but no one seems to know what she is talking about. As the film unfolds we learn that Buddy's tv show is actually an alternate universe in which he kidnaps its cast members wiping their memories along with any trace of their existence from the people in their lives, Freddy and Grace must try to find answers for what has happened to them before Buddy smears them out for good.
The designs of the characters and the set is the shining jewel of this film, Buddy's design along with his sidekick Betty Bunny is an obvious Barney nod but we get much more with the talking backpack Strappie (Dora the Explorer), the anthropomorphic household objects (Peewee's Playhouse), Willie the cowboy puppet (Howdy Doody), the far away magical Diamond City (Wizard of Oz), and many others that will have your head spinning. The child performances are the next best thing of this work which is surprising because quite often especially in lower budget films the child performances are something you can't get over but they all understood the assignment and it greatly helps sell this world.
The issue that I get hung up with is the direction of the plot, with the introduction of Grace in the 2nd act it feels too late to add another major plot line which derails the film faster than Charlie the Train. This sudden shift seems more like a writer backroom, "Oh we don't have enough material for a feature film let's throw this in instead of expanding and doing more character building with the cast of the first act". Which brings up my biggest peeve of this film, it doesn't fully deliver on its concept, Caspar has shown he is capable of pushing genre tropes to its extreme of breaking into the surrealistic uncanny and Buddy doesn't quite reach that point which the comedy and lack of world building is to blame.
The comedy in this film is primarily low hanging fruit of socially awkward sexual humor with the children, whether its penis jokes anongst the kids, Georgie the creepy old man sidekick of cowboy puppet Willie making sexually inappropriate comments to the children and of course the gay sexual relationship between Georgie and Willie. This kind of cheap comedy takes away from uncanny of this world and only gives the audience groans in trade. Instead we should have straight performances especially from the adults Mailman Miles and Nurse Nancy, maybe building on the terror by having them in on it or being unwilling victims trapped in this world but unable to do anything similar to that of Get Out.
Buddy is overall an interesting concept that doesn't quite stick the landing due to the filmmaker getting lost along the way trying to cover too much ground mixing genres that just doesn't work in the end but I would still recommend seeing this to people who are itching for some social commentary on children's media while reveling it at the same time.
★★★
Analysis Time SPOILERS
Buddy's primary theme is what happens when you push against the authority of a narcissist, Buddy plays nice as long as everyone strokes his ego but as soon as they commit any form of dissention he will destroy them. Buddy is a giant orange unicorn with blonde hair, what other narcissist fits these traits— Donald Trump, even the unicorn part can be tied in from Trump spokesman Sean Spicer, who in his book refers to Trump as a unicorn riding over a rainbow when it comes to turning attacks against him to work in his favor.
After Buddy disposed of his fellow cast members he instantly replaces them pretending nothing happened and everything is going great which fits Trump's MO to a tee, how many times have we witnessed him fire and instantly replace his white house staff as if this an every day occureence while it's played off as not a big deal which if this were to happen during any other administration the news would have a heyday. Speaking of news after Buddy murdered Josh he silenced the only witness Mr Mailbox by ripping off his lid being part of his mouth, the mail is one of the very few outlets of communication with the outside world at Buddy, this is similar to Trump's tactics with news companies that speak out against him using his power to intimidate and silence them from spreading information about his abuse. Nurse Nancy is the only professional adult at Buddy's who requires a degree and specified knowledge of their field to be able to do their job, as soon as Nancy questions Buddy about what happened to Josh Buddy murders her by silencing her literally through strangulation by the throat, Trump is one of the biggest science deniers in recent memory and he has placed people with no experience or knowledge into positions of power over fields of science to discredit the actual professionals who contradict Trump's agenda.
Luckily the children have Charlie the Train to take them to Diamond City but Buddy dismantles Charlie immediately to keep the children from freely leaving, Trump has one of the largest travel bans limiting visa holders and dual nationals from freely traveling to and from their countries. The only way for the children to escape Buddy's is over a large fence that Buddy has warned them of the dangers that lay beyond this fence, obviously this tracks with the border wall and Trump's constant assertions of how dangerous and shitty the world is outside of the United States.
While journeying to Diamond City the children come across some people from Buddy's past, Willie the cowboy puppet and his boy turned old man lover Georgie, after warning the children of Buddy and pointing out some of his weaknesses Buddy kills them both for their traitorous actions. Trump also had himself an old acquaintance who dabbled in child love and threatened to expose Trump after a falling out with him, this person of course was Epstein who also strangely died under Trump's administration and all the information linked to his past crimes has been gagged from the public.
I will end with the one of the films major drives which is this sense of nostalgia and the safety ans comfort that comes with it. There should be nothing more safe than a children's television show especially from a time of American prosperity which this echoes the main mantra of Trump's campaign slogan of Making America Great Again which relies on American's sense of nostalgia for a time of innocence in their life when they themselves were children and didn't have all the concerns that weigh upon them as adults. This childlike innocence also ties in with one of Trump's main attacking points against "woke" ideology by claiming that these individuals are attacking and corrupting American youth yet during Trump's administration we have seen the biggest attack on the education department dismantling and defunding public schools if they didn't adhere to the administration's guidelines of what can and cannot be taught in schools. This fits in well with the scene where Freddy stumbled upon the screening room in the bunker where all the children are wearing these mechanical helmets (giving off major A Clockwork Orange vibes) while they are being forced to watch Buddy's show.
And that's what it all comes down to, it's Buddy's show, if you don't play ball you will be taken care of and he will do everything to make sure your presence and your dissenting actions have never existed.
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