Buddy

Vera Drew5.0

we’ve been inundated with mascot horror movies and i wasn’t really sure what to expect when i sat down for this, but Buddy surpasses anything in that genre realm because it is just a fantastic piece of filmmaking and abstract art. so much world building and lore baked into a narrative that is equal parts funny/fucked up/full of heart. i didn’t want it to end. there was so much subtly in the aesthetic shifts throughout…i was really blown away by the look, the production design, and color palette. it’s really hard to pull of this mixture of analog, horror, and absurdist comedy and Casper Kelly (Two Many Cooks) walks that high wire with absolute ease.watched at Overlook Film Festival 2026

cob5.0

i can’t believe this shit exists

Deathy4.5

Score : 9.2/10 ✅Seen at Fantasia International Film Festival 2026Incredibly my thing and one of the coolest treats if you categorize yourself as a 90’s kid. So much that I now feel alone in here for enjoying the slower/conversational second act.The real exchange value of Casper Kelly’s Buddy is in whatever plans our overcontrolling unicorn has for the children. All episodes are approached as some educational pretext for pushing inappropriate discipline and unsuitable boundaries. The ultimate creepy realization isn’t that a weird individual is hidden under a unicorn costume. It’s that he’s literally a surreal mascot entity that won’t tolerate any skepticism. There’s definitely something funny, yet chilling, about how everything must go according to his plan. Oh, and I liked how the straw that broke the camel's back is all about not finishing an episode as he wants, which means ending the episode with a pressure hug. While the episode's format is quite clear, the joy comes from seeing the kids disrupt its direction. From that particular point, all hell breaks loose. There’s obviously more to the story, like the inclusion of a ‘real-world’ character in this ‘twilight zone’ and a ton of puppetry destruction that won’t go unnoticed, but I’d say that Buddy’s creepiness and inability to handle control over his ‘episodes’ are the real highlights. I already thought the movie was going wild with a bold orange Buddy who has a hidden motive, but his ‘dark-form’ was an amazing surprise. The way he was enraged and predatory near the end fit well with the rest of the movie — building Buddy's anger and rage to extreme levels and not letting him have it.