New ‘Buddy’ Images Tease the Killer Unicorn of Your Nightmares; Director Compares Film to ‘The Night of the Hunter’

Too Many Cooks creator Casper Kelly is a man whose sense of humor I vibe with. Weird, wild, and wholly unexpected, you never know what you’re going to get with him, only that it’s going to be utterly bonkers. That appears to be the case with his demented upcoming horror film, Buddy, a play on characters like Barney…if they decided to start hacking everyone up.

EW just shared a handful of new images today that tease a situation in which the kids are most certainly not all right. Instead, they are very, very scared.

“Inside the colorful world of It’s Buddy!, a group of children spends their days singing, dancing, and helping Buddy spread happiness. But when one child refuses to play along, Buddy is not pleased, and cracks begin to appear in this seemingly perfect world.”

While sitting down with EW, the outlet compared the film to Kubrick’s The Shining, which Kelly agreed with. The filmmaker also added, “I was thinking of other children’s shows, like Howdy Doody or The Wizard of Oz, of course. Oh, and a little bit of Night of the Hunter as well.” 

Night of the Hunter, you say? I can see it. Charles Laughton’s classic is full of haunting imagery and follows Robert Mitchum as a murderer hunting a pair of kids. The comparison fits, and it has me even more excited to see Buddy.

In our interview with Kelly, he provided some exclusive insights into where his idea for the film came from and how he understood television as a child. “When I was a young kid and watched shows with actors, I thought they lived in the TV show. And I always wondered what happens if they don’t want to do the story that day? Or what if they’re sick? Do they still have to do it, or where do they sleep? We never see their bedrooms, so it just started leading me down a path.”

Josh Korngut gave the film a positive review out of its Sundance World Premiere, writing, “Imperfect, yes, but films like  don’t come along very often, and filmmakers like Casper Kelly are even rarer.” He adds that the film “is outrageous, mean, and regularly funny.”