Is ‘Buddy’ A Good Movie? 5 Reasons To Give The Retro Slasher A Try

There’s something uniquely creepy about horror movies that twist childhood imagery into something terrifying, isn’t there? Everyone grew up with some kid-friendly property, and seeing it twisted into something monstrous gets under the skin, and the more wholesome they are, the more effective the scares are. Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023) is probably the best example, but franchises like the Twisted Childhood Universe are certainly cashing in on the trend. And then there’s Buddy (2026), a horror film that feels darker and more uncomfortable than them all.

Trailers for Buddy have painted it as a colorful kids' show with a dark underbelly, but it keeps what’s going on extremely close to the chest. It’s a film that doesn’t want to let you in on its secrets at all, but horror fans may write it off as a Five Nights at Freddy’s knock-off solely because it’s about a giant orange unicorn on a kids' show who murders children. But Buddy is so much more than that, and if you’re on the fence about whether or not to see Casper Kelly’s next descent into madness following Too Many Cooks (2014) or Adult Swim Yule Log (2022), then here are some reasons that may pique your interest.

1) Its Premise Is Both Familiar And Creative

Let’s not kid ourselves here—some of the FNAF comparisons are apt. Watching giant animal mascots kill kids has become somewhat of a tired trope, but Buddy subverts those expectations by changing the context.

Instead of being about a defunct TV show or location being rediscovered by a new generation, ‘It’s Buddy,’ the TV show the film is based on, seems to have never been canceled, or for that matter, exist. The show, and the Barney & Friends (1992) set that the kids and cartoon characters live on, seemingly takes place in another plane of existence. There’s more to the world than just the little house Buddy and his friends inhabit, but at the same time, there isn’t.

Also, while one would suspect that Buddy’s friends are also heinous monsters, that isn’t true. Buddy’s the sole villain of the film, and some of his friends are either afraid of him, complicit in his deeds, or completely unaware of what’s happening. It leads to a 95-minute runtime where you never really know where the film is going, sometimes quite literally. It turns Buddy into a film that can change tone on a dime and keeps you on edge.

2) Keegan-Michael Key Loses Himself As Buddy

A slasher is always as good as its killer, and Buddy the Unicorn is definitely distinct from the masked serial killers that litter the genre, and what helps set Buddy apart is his voice actor, Keegan-Michael Key.

Most people will probably be familiar with Key from Key & Peele (2012), where Key, alongside Jordan Peele, made some of the best sketch comedy skits of the 2010s. Now, Key voices the lovable Buddy, who always emanates a sickeningly sweet disposition. He never gets mad even when he’s doing the most heinous things.

Key plays Buddy as someone who thinks he’s always in the right and wants to have fun with the kids on his show more than anything else. But that same sweetness also makes him incredibly unpredictable. Key makes Buddy into a true maniac, almost on the same level as Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men (2007). You don’t know if Buddy will hug you or stab you, but he’ll be laughing through it no matter what. If you didn’t know that this was the same guy who plays Toad in The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), then get ready for some crazy whiplash.

3) There’s A Lot More Going On Behind-The-Scenes Than It May Seem

If the trailers didn’t make it clear, even with the film’s unusual premise, there are plenty of secrets that Buddy is hiding from its viewers, but even then, there’s so much more going on.

Without getting into any spoilers, Buddy’s ending raises a ton of questions that the film doesn’t really answer. There are obviously questions about Buddy’s true purpose, but the inner workings of ‘It’s Buddy’ are just as tantalizing and outright sinister. It’s the kind of ending you would have to stop and rewatch countless times to begin to craft a theory on, and even then, there’s a good chance someone else has a hypothesis that would contradict yours.

This is the kind of film that would create an online community in the same vein as Don’t Hug Me, I’m Scared (2011), where most of the discussion around it is less about the horror and more about everything surrounding it. It could lead to more sequels, but it’s also just as good, if not better, that we never get any answers about the truth of ‘It’s Buddy.’

4) ‘Buddy’ Isn’t Afraid To Make You Uncomfortable

Horror movies, by design, are meant to terrify viewers, but there’s a difference between fear and discomfort, and Buddy is nothing, if not uncomfortable.

There are the usual slasher bits you would expect from Buddy. There are decapitations here, gallons of blood there, and a smattering of stabbings and slicings throughout. So far, so good, but then Buddy pushes it into territories that even veteran horror fans would find icky, and all without a drop of blood in sight. A handful of scenes show the characters that inhabit Buddy’s world view love in a very different way than the average person. Hugs can go on a bit too long and be a bit too intimate, and because there are children involved, certain scenes can make you feel like there should be a bad touch alarm blaring at full volume, even if the scene involves adults. That, and the way Buddy is designed, and the damage that comes to his fluffy orange self, self-inflicted or not, are sure to linger in your mind well after the film ends. 

5) Virtually All Of The Special Effects Are Practical

Speaking of the harm that comes to Buddy and the people in his magical world, most, if not all, of the special effects in Buddy are practical, which is welcome for two reasons. 

First, that means the gore feels juicy and real. Seeing clumps of flesh plop onto the ground and blood spurt all over the place gives Buddy a tactility that not many horror movies commit to. It’s far easier to use CG to create the carnage, but actually seeing the sloshing liquids splatter just hits different. Second, it also sells the premise of the film. If this is meant to be a child-friendly show like Barney, everything on that show was real. All the cartoon characters were puppets, props, or people in suits, and seeing those same techniques used only shows how far Buddy will go to commit to its vision. That, and through some creative use of perspective and scale, it sells one of the film’s best twists and instills in the kids a sense of fear that there’s no escape from Buddy. Everything was crafted with intent in Buddy, and horror is always just a little bit nicer when everything feels tangible.