Buddy (II) (Imagine Film Festival 2026)

Casper Kelly is not trying to hide the inspiration behind Buddy. An alumni of Adult Swim, a block of programming notorious for turning innocent animation and children’s TV on its head, Kelly has based his new film Buddy off an age-old question, one that no doubt came to parents’ heads in the 90’s: what if Barney the Dinosaur was a complete and utter psychopath? It’s a ripe idea, but it’s also one that could be decried as a stupid novelty if handled poorly. Look no further than Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, which decided to twist only the core idea of Winnie the Pooh and make it into an amateurish slasher movie where the killers are Leatherface wannabes that happen to be dressed like Pooh and Piglet. 

Fortunately, Buddy has the imagination and, for the want of a better phrase, the balls to commit to its idea of Barney and Friends gone dark. It’s not just Barney it’s alluding to: the talking mailboxes and other objects reminded me of the Wiggles, as did the saturated primary colours, and the happy-go-lucky talking train is a riff on basically any character from Thomas the Tank Engine. Buddy may not have Aussie adults making fruit salad, or calming narration by Ringo Starr, but its amalgam of preschool entertainment cliches is uncanny and well-presented. 

Buddy is not as heavy on the gore as I’d previously anticipated, but it’s all the better for it. Instead, it utilises the children’s show setting for some genuinely creepy imagery. The image of a happy talking mailbox being ripped apart, or a talking choo-choo train with its face torn off, somehow feels more horrifying than if blood had gushed out of them. There is of course violence that more aligns with slasher-movie tropes – heads being slammed on desks, immolation, the usual – but the juxtaposition between the children’s TV show unravelling and the more standard bloodbath stuff works really well.

CLICK THE POSTER AT THE BOTTOM OF THE REVIEW FOR MORE ON BUDDY AND IMAGINE FILM FESTIVAL

The first third of Buddy presents itself as multiple episodes of a Barney-esque TV show. There’s child characters who call on Buddy when they need help, a lot of singing and dancing, and the adult characters teaching the children social skills. It’s in the same ballpark as the first couple of episodes of Wandavision, which were mostly standard sitcom tributes but you knew something wasn’t quite right. However, Buddy’s pacing has to be a lot less languid and a lot more intense. While the marketing is pretty obvious that Buddy is not the nice character the kids think he is, the mask drops very quickly. Within 20 minutes, two child characters are already plotting an escape plan, one child has ‘gone to the city to dance,’ and the talking mailbox has been ripped apart in case it speaks out. Fairly quickly, the film reaches a confrontation scene that a more methodically-paced film would have likely saved for a finale. It’s an effectively odd and terrifying few minutes that really puts the stakes as high as they can go in this situation. Then there’s a shift, and the film began to lose me.

Buddy’s second act muddies the focus of the film a bit, as we begin to shift to another character’s perspective and the canvas of the world opens up. This was bound to happen, but it’s not a smooth transition, and I soon found myself wanting to return to the twisted version of Barney, and not the suburban family dynamic the film begins exploring. It’s at least useful in showing the film has an impressive cast: Christin Milotti, who I most know for the USS Callister episodes of Black Mirror, is great as this mother who thinks her house is haunted by a spirit, and Topher Grace (he likes being bad, it makes him happy), is good, if underused, as her husband. 

Even then, the film already is showing off its cast before this. Keegan-Michael Key is incredibly fun and chilling as the voice of Buddy, Strappy the talking backpack is voiced by Patton Oswalt, and there’s an assortment of side characters voiced by the recently-deceased Eric Bauza, who always delivered tremendous work in the voice booth. It’s not that this subplot is particularly bad, but it’s much less interesting and distinct than the rest of the film, and I was much happier when the film returned to the TV-show setting in the second half. 

I really have to commend the child actors here. Not only are they perfectly cast as far as replicating Barney and Friends is concerned, but they look suitably horrified when they realise the terrible truth behind Buddy. In particular, Delaney Quinn is really strong as the main girl Freddy. She also appeared earlier this year in the excellent If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, playing Rose Byrne’s ill and overbearing daughter, and if these two performances are any indication, she’s going to go far.

The third act sometimes feels at a loss for how to raise the stakes further. As I said, the first half an hour went way harder than I was expecting it to, and left me wondering quite how the film was going to top that. There’s a gloriously over-the-top moment here that doesn’t make much sense, but I love its commitment to the bit all the same. The rest of the climax is fine, but it can just feel like the first act again only we know more than what we knew then. That said, Buddy does leave enough to the imagination to make the ending genuinely eerie. 

As a film which endeavours to turn a preschool TV show into nightmare fuel, Buddy is certainly not a gimmick. It commits to its presentation and uses all the cliches of the genre to great effect. But it can lose a bit of steam when it tries to deviate from this setup, losing its focus and a bit of its identity. It’s not perfect, but as far as turning a stupid novelty idea into a well-made genre flick, there are far worse examples out there than Buddy.

ALEX’S ARCHIVE – BUDDY (II)