{"id":14947,"date":"2026-08-26T16:20:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T20:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=14947"},"modified":"2026-08-26T16:20:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T20:20:42","slug":"buddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/08\/26\/buddy\/","title":{"rendered":"Buddy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Buddy<\/strong> (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Roadside Attractions\/Horror-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 95 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (bloody violence, some drug content and language- all involving children)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Casper Kelly\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Casper Kelly and Jamie King\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michael Yezerski\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Zach Kuperstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 28, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Keegan-Michael Key, Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Patton Oswalt, Michael Shannon, Clint Howard, Topher Grace, Caleb \u201cC.J.\u201d Williams, Tristan Broders, Madison Skyy Polan, Luke Speakman, Bennie Taylor, Phuong Kubacki, Eric Bauza, Cedwan Hooks, Devon Hawkes Ludlow, Seamus Flynn, Bryson JonSteele, Mark Aaron Buerkle, Brooke Bloom.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0I was well past the target age when Barney arrived on the scene in the early 90s. The anthropomorphic purple dinosaur, who taught valuable life lessons through song and dance, quickly became every child\u2019s obsession and every parent\u2019s nightmare. I can still hear my little cousins (ages 3 and 2 at the time) singing that annoying theme song on repeat. I largely avoided family gatherings until they grew out of it, not that what came next (The Spice Girls) was any better.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I figured it was only a matter of time before some filmmaker decided to give Barney (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) the horror treatment. Sure enough, here\u2019s Buddy<\/strong>! He\u2019s essentially Barney in a different form, a bright-orange unicorn to be exact. He serves the same basic purpose. He\u2019s a stuffed toy brought to life by his \u201cfriends\u201d to help them navigate tricky situations. Each episode ends with a lesson learned and the kids hugging their host while singing the theme song. The similarities end there.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So what\u2019s different about Buddy? Let me put it this way. Whatever you do, for God\u2019s sake, don\u2019t get on his bad side. It could be fatal. That\u2019s right, Buddy is a killer. He doesn\u2019t take kindly to having his feelings hurt when one of the kids steps out of line somehow. Early on, he deals with a boy who\u2019d rather read a book than go to a dance party. Needless to say, there\u2019s an abrupt cast change.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Casper Kelly (the \u201cFun Size\u201d segment of V\/H\/S\/Halloween), Buddy<\/strong> is the most twisted movie of the year. I love how Kelly structures his horror-comedy. Set in 1999, it opens with a couple of episodes of the show (i.e. It\u2019s Buddy!). It\u2019s set in a world of talking objects (e.g. mailboxes, backpacks, trains) and happy, smiling kids. Alas, not all is right with this world. There\u2019s something sinister about it. It\u2019s almost as if they\u2019re trapped there.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Freddy (Quinn), a little girl with pigtails and freckles, is the first to realize something\u2019s very wrong here.\u00a0 She sees something she shouldn\u2019t have. Buddy explains it away with a lie. Freddy isn\u2019t convinced. She tries to warn the other children. They don\u2019t want to believe her. When they finally do, they start looking for a way to escape from the show.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the real world, nobody seems to have heard of Buddy, nobody except Grace (Milioti, The Penguin), a wife and mother who seems to be going through something. She isn\u2019t sure what though. During a consult with a psychic at her home, It\u2019s Buddy pops up on TV. She can\u2019t find anything about him online. It\u2019s almost as if he never existed. Her husband (Grace, Heretic) dismisses her concerns and tells her to get a grip. She can\u2019t. She keeps looking until….<\/p>\n

\u00a0This is where I stop describing the plot of Buddy<\/strong> and start telling you why I love it. But first, I\u2019d like to address something I saw a few people mention on social media. It\u2019s going to be tricky though. It\u2019s about the ending. I\u2019m going to have to talk my way around it so I don\u2019t spoil it. Okay, here goes nothing. The movie\u2019s detractors said they didn\u2019t get it, that it left them with more questions than answers. They claim Buddy<\/strong> doesn\u2019t explain itself. That\u2019s not entirely true. It\u2019s not entirely untrue either. It doesn\u2019t come right out and explain what\u2019s going on. BUT if you think about it, you can probably come up with an explanation. Kelly drops enough clues. Also, I believe he\u2019s setting the stage for a sequel in which all will be explained. That\u2019s all I have to say on the subject.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I love Buddy<\/strong> for many reasons. For one, it\u2019s original. I can safely say I\u2019ve never seen anything like it. It also tells the story in a clever way. Kelly makes excellent use of 90s aesthetics in creating a world that\u2019s simultaneously a wholesome fantasy land for children and a nightmare landscape with monsters. At one point, the kids encounter an old cowboy (Howard, the OG Ice Cream Man) with a creepy ventriloquist\u2019s dummy (voiced by Michael Shannon) who encourage them to consume hallucinogenic flower petals.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This leads me to my next point. Buddy<\/strong> isn\u2019t afraid to get trippy. It\u2019s like Barney on acid although it could be argued that many children\u2019s shows from back in the day look like they were made by people on drugs. How else would you explain The New Zoo Revue or The Great Space Coaster or anything by Sid and Marty Krofft? Everything in Buddy<\/strong> feels slightly off. I can dig it!<\/p>\n

\u00a0I heard somebody compare Buddy<\/strong> to Terrifier. I\u2019m not so sure I agree with that 100%. It has a few gory scenes (one involving a child), but it\u2019s not nearly as gory as any of the Terrifier films. They are in a class of their own in that respect. In any event, the gore effects here are well done. They\u2019re sufficiently gross and bloody.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The cast looks and sounds like they\u2019re having a blast with Buddy. Keegan-Michael Key (of Key & Peele) voices Buddy and does a marvelous job of it. He puts just the right amount of sugar-coated malevolence into the things he says to the kids. There\u2019s something evil right beneath the surface. Milioti also does great as a woman who comes to play a big role in the story. As for the junior members of the cast, they look just like the kids you\u2019d see on a show like this. They make you believe their fear is real.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t know how successful Buddy<\/strong> will be at the box office. It\u2019s more likely to achieve cult film status. I just hope it\u2019s enough for Roadside Attractions to greenlight a sequel. I\u2019ll be there opening day if it ever materializes.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buddy (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Roadside Attractions\/Horror-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 95 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (bloody violence, some drug content and language- all involving children)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Casper Kelly\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Casper Kelly and Jamie King\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michael Yezerski\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Zach Kuperstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 28, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Keegan-Michael Key, Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Patton Oswalt, Michael Shannon, Clint Howard, Topher Grace, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-now-playing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Buddy-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14947"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14952,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14947\/revisions\/14952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}