If you’re looking for some late-night weirdness to get you through the dog days of summer, look no further than “Buddy.” The latest effort from “Too Many Cooks” auteur Casper Kelly is a genre-bending work of meta horror that stars Keegan-Michael Key as a fluorescent orange unicorn who hosts a kids’ TV show that’s reminiscent of “Barney.” But while such shows are famous for uncritically portraying children as living with puppet-like creatures without any adult supervision in sight, “Buddy” follows that premise to a twisted conclusion that shows what lies beyond the wholesome 22-minute intervals we see on TV.
“Buddy” premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where it was acquired by Roadside Attractions and Saban Films. It was an immediate hit, with critics and audiences alike praising it for capturing the magic of Kelly’s earlier projects on a much larger scale.
“Ever since he released the viral Adult Swim sitcom intro pastiche ‘Too Many Cooks’ in 2014, Casper Kelly has been inching closer and closer to a true mainstream breakout. Subsequent projects — from the Cheddar Goblin in ‘Mandy’ and the video game streaming satire ‘Final Deployment 4: Queen Battle Walkthrough’ to the meta horror film ‘Adult Swim Yule Log‘ and its clever 2024 sequel — have all established him as an auteur with instantly recognizable stylistic preferences,” IndieWire’s Sundance review read. “His obsessions include the quirks of disposable family media from the ’80s and ’90s, the hand-crafted set design and puppetry that went into making the aforementioned analog slop, and treating post-production additions like end credits and theme songs as real in-universe occurrences that characters have to navigate. And most of all, he appears to love nothing more than introducing you to one type of media before revealing that you’ve actually been watching something entirely different.”
The review continued, “His new film ‘Buddy’ gives Kelly the chance to play all of those hits on the biggest canvas of his career. The results are electric. A nesting doll of media that begins with a meticulous recreation of a kids’ TV show that quickly turns bloody, the film proceeds to take audiences down a rabbit hole that transcends mediums and timelines as a group of cute kids try to figure out how to stop a giant orange unicorn from murdering them. It’s as twisty and stimulating as Kelly’s most complicated work, but it’s all wrapped in a premise that’s simple enough to reach beyond his core audience: What if ‘Barney’ was a horror movie?”
“Buddy” is directed by Casper Kelly, who co-wrote the script with Jamie King. The film also stars Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Tristan Borders, Madison Skyy Polan, Caleb “CJ” Williams, Luke Speakman, Patton Oswalt, Clint Howard, Michael Shannon, and Topher Grace.
“Buddy” opens in theaters on Friday, August 28. Watch the trailer below.