By Alice Preputnick
One of my favorite activities to do with my friends is to see new movies when they come out in theaters. Recently, my friends and I went and saw Buddy, the new dark comedy horror movie starring Keegan-Michael Key as the titular character. Going into this movie, my expectations were low, and I was far from blown away at what I witnessed.
The movie follows the four leading children of a surreal 1990s television show as they slowly discover the twisted nature of Buddy, the show’s unicorn host.
Buddy was visually stunning to look at. The effects absolutely captured the aesthetic of a 1990s kid’s tv show that the plot called for, with the parallels to the 1992 show “Barney & Friends” not going unnoticed. I appreciated how at the end of an ‘episode’ of Buddy, production credits would roll, with slight changes being made as the story progressed. Its details like this that attract me to films because it shows that the production team put thought and effort into the project. Yet, this detail of the movie did not overshadow everything else I disliked about the movie.
If this movie would have been a short film, rather than a full-length movie, the impact of the main message would have been stronger and better received by the audience. There was not enough compellingmaterial in the script to make it a great movie.
The middle section of the movie dragged heavily and often had me rolling my eyes. The scenes with the ventriloquist and his puppet were unnecessary to the plot and was a waste of time. It felt like the writers added that in to shock the audience, since no new information that was pertinent to main characters got revealed. I still have not quite made up my mind on how I feel about the subplot that introduces the character of Grace and how abruptly the cut to her storyline is. I think that it is necessary to give her character a backstory because of how relevant she is to the children that are trapped in the show; however, it was not fleshed out enough for me to respect it.
While there were promising scenes in this movie, it was still very uninspiring and made my friends and I audibly laugh-out-loud in the theater at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. In full, if you enjoy horror movies, sure, go see this; I’m certain you will enjoy some aspects of it. But, in my opinion, Buddy is a 2026 release that can be skipped (or avoided) at all costs.