Get Ready to Meet Your Next Best Buddy (SXSW) in Casper Kelly’s Fantastic Horror Comedy

Title: Buddy

First Non-Festival Release: TBD

Director: Casper Kelly

Writer: Casper Kelly, Jamie King

Runtime: 95 Minutes

Starring: Keegan-Michael Key, Delaney Quinn, Cristin Milioti

Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here

This film’s review was written after its screening at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2026.

Kids experience the world differently. People, situations, emotions. Everything feels larger than life, more daunting, scarier. “You have to be scared to be brave.” Wise words any kid can take with them when confronting something dangerous or scary, it comes from a catchy tune created by your favorite television show host. 

Buddy the Unicorn (Keegan-Michael Key) hosts a television show with all his best friends: Freddy (Delaney Quinn), Wade (Caleb Williams), Oliver (Tristan Borders), and Josh (Luke Speakman) along with various grown-ups in the show. When Josh doesn’t want to join Buddy and the others at a dance party so he can read his book instead, Buddy takes the most logical action: he kills Josh. The episode finishes and Freddy soon discovers Josh’s missing book, only it’s covered in blood. When new girl Hannah (Madison Polan) arrives without explanation and Buddy is acting strangely, Freddy knows that they aren’t safe. Meanwhile, a mom (Cristin Milioti) finds herself drawn to the television show when she feels something is missing in her life.

Delightfully campy and surprisingly scary, Buddy merges nostalgia with terror in its riveting take on childhood fears. 

A technicolor nightmare, Buddy takes viewers on a perilous journey one must take to survive television. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Buddy literally shows children terrorized by the harmful material within the media they consume and the almost impossible quest to break free from its grasp. Wrapped in the bombastic, candy-coated world of a children’s television show is a metaphor for the death of innocence. Perspective becomes everything. Watching Buddy as a child, it’s easy to see how jarring it would be to see a friendly sounding character turn out to be so evil, as well as the violence and supernatural happenings too. Seeing it through the lens of an adult provides even more insight into what Buddy says about ourselves.

The distortion of media is terrifying not for its effect on our beloved scraps of nostalgia but because it reveals an uncomfortable truth: nothing is permanent. Not even the sanctity of our youth, those lucky enough to live it. Buddy’s show is supposed to teach kids everything they need to know in life. When Freddy and her friends choose to leave the safety of Buddy’s show, they step into a world they aren’t prepared for. Duplicitous strangers, drugs, useless adults, and facsimiles of salvation mire the group’s efforts to escape but all make fascinating parallels to what it is like to grow up in a world hostile to you.

And that’s what media has become for kids today. The dangers sneak their way into unsupervised kid’s lives through an opening, mostly innocuous. It starts with a video on self-confidence before a rabbit hole takes them on a trip to the Manosphere or world of pro-Ana. Buddy takes this idea of the corruption of youth and makes the points hit even harder.

Buddy works because the source of fear is so relatable. It’s not the fact he’s a killer unicorn mascot but because of what he represents. Buddy, and his deadly secret persona, is a narcissist, requiring the love of those around him to stay alive and make it to the next episode. Everyone knows a Buddy: charming, fun-loving, but secretly a monster behind closed doors to the ones he should protect most. There’s a surprising amount of depth stuffed inside this children-led horror comedy.

While managing to tackle a variety of important and topical issues, Buddy also absolutely rips as a scary horror film. It might seem silly that the forever smiling unicorn mascot can be a source of such fear but it’s because of the juxtaposition of his perceived friendliness with his inner rage that makes Buddy so frightening. Manipulative and vindictive, Buddy takes pleasure in causing pain to those that he believes wronged him, and in his eyes, that’s everyone. The explosive nature of the horror crescendos into a surprisingly grim climax that really shows Buddy’s teeth.

And it all comes to life thanks to brilliant production and design elements. Beautifully filmed, Buddy gives the horror comedy setup the full cinematic experience. Lush sets, spot-on costumes, and exemplary special and visual effects make the world of Buddy come to life. Creative in the ways it incorporates small details into its world, like disembodied stuffed animal mouths or sentient flower petal ayahuasca trips, Buddy makes intentional choices to expand its world to its extreme.

Buddy is a spell-binding film that hides its genius underneath its relatively simple, and easy-to-mistake as juvenile, approach to horror comedy. Boasting an impressive cast, excellent visuals, pulse-pounding horror, and gut-busting laughs, Buddy is the can’t miss horror event of the year. Hopefully, Buddy will be taking his rightful place on your television screen by the end of 2026.

Overall Score? 9/10