By Jason Osiason

Buddy is basically Barney flipped inside out into a meta absurdist horror movie. An axe wielding unicorn trapped inside a brightly colored children’s show that plays out like multiple episodes of a warped kids program. Sounds fun? To an extent.

The movie starts strong. Casper Kelly clearly understands the strange psychological hold children’s television has on people who grew up with it. The film leans hard into that nostalgia before twisting it into something sinister. The set looks exactly like a low budget educational show. Foam trees, plastic clouds, fake forests. Everything is aggressively artificial and drenched in color. Bright purples, oranges, and greens dominate the frame like the whole world has been dipped in children’s television paint.

That stylization is easily the film’s strongest element. The production design and color palette create this strange tension where the environment is constantly screaming joy while something darker is unfolding underneath it. The smiles feel forced. The hugs feel threatening. Songs and cheerful lessons about kindness slowly start to feel like nightmare logic.

I loved the early stretch where the movie dissects the formula of the children’s shows many of us grew up with. The way those programs manufacture warmth and safety while quietly shaping behavior. The film plays with that structure in clever ways. It almost feels like a demented lost VHS tape from the 90s that someone accidentally corrupted.

But after that strong start the movie quickly grows one note. Once the central joke reveals itself it keeps repeating the same beat over and over. The absurdity stops escalating and instead just loops. I kept thinking about Krazy House from a couple years ago which had a similar chaotic premise but kept pushing its ideas further.

Some of the material involving the kids also veers into the wrong kind of uncomfortable. Not transgressive in an interesting way. Just awkward and unpleasant in a way that pulls you out of the satire.

Cristin Milioti also deserved more. She brings a weird energy to the role but the film never fully uses her.

There is still something undeniably memorable about the premise and the stylized candy colored nightmare world Kelly builds. When the movie leans into that visual language it works.

But what starts as a sharp, funny dissection of children’s television slowly settles into a single gag stretched a little too far.

Still, it is one of the stranger things you’ll see at Sundance this year. [C+]