In 2014, filmmaker Casper Kelly unleashed the instantly iconic horror-comedy short “Too Many Cooks” upon the world. A magnificently conceived and crafted deconstruction of the formal elements of a sitcom, it was as uproariously funny as it was endlessly rewatchable, with gags that have only gotten better over time. In only 11 minutes, Kelly and company managed to twist all of the seemingly safe sitcom elements audiences have long been familiar with into a deliriously new nightmare version.
With “Buddy,” Kelly’s highly anticipated feature directorial debut about a children’s show overruled by a terrifying Barney-esque mascot, we see him attempting to stretch out a similar conceit over 95 minutes. Unfortunately, in doing so, the entire thing comes apart at the seams and offers little of anything new.
While plenty of blood and guts come spilling out in the process, there is surprisingly little in the way of genuine inventiveness to be found in this genre misfire. Where Kelly’s short was punchy and memorable, this feature is baggy, even oddly boring in large stretches, as it struggles to keep the momentum going following a stronger opener.
It earns a chuckle here and there, though it is never consistently funny enough to escape the painfully meandering path it seems insistent on going down. Ironically, in taking on a bigger and less scrappy project with more riding on it, it feels like a film that’s being pulled in too many different directions by, well, too many cooks.
At the center of the film is Delaney Quinn of last year’s “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” as Freddy. She is a young girl who is trapped in a seemingly never-ending cycle of a children’s television program that is overseen by the overbearing Buddy, a unicorn who stomps about whenever he gets mad and seems right on the cusp of snapping.
When he does snap, the already fragile peace Freddy and her friends were living in is shattered, resulting in them going on an adventure in the hopes of escaping Buddy’s clutches. Meanwhile, in the real world, Grace (Cristin Milioti) lives a hum-drum life with her obnoxious husband Ben (Topher Grace) that is upended when she begins to sense that something is terribly wrong.
While the opening introduction to this premise is initially promising, as soon as we come crashing into the real world, the entire film grinds to a halt. You can tell that these two seemingly disparate parts are going to connect, but “Buddy” takes what feels like forever to finally get to it. After the more energetic start, the hit-and-miss jokes about Grace’s mundane life feel increasingly forced.
None of this is the fault of Milioti, who is able to hit all the right tonal shifts that are asked of her, but the film gives her almost nothing else to work with. It feels like Kelly is padding out a script that maybe had a couple of good jokes and gags in the hopes of expanding them into a full feature.
As we go out in the woods, there is something to appreciate in how well the production design is able to replicate and riff on the elements of children’s television of a certain era. But when the jokes start to shift from being more daringly dark to being merely juvenile, all the technical craft can’t mask how tiresome this all is.
Every moment you think there is going to be some sort of meaningful escalation, “Buddy” lets you down and returns to making what is essentially the same joke in slightly different registers. It feels like you’re constantly waiting for the actual film to begin, only to discover that it never actually does. Where “Too Many Cooks” consistently expanded beyond the frame in each escalation, “Buddy” seems to retreat further and further back into itself.
When we return back to where it all began, things pick up a little bit, but “Buddy” still can’t shake the sense that this is all going in circles. There’s a late twist the film tries to use to inject some emotion into the experience, but this too feels forced rather than earned.
Each time you think you’re seeing the daylight of something potentially better to explore on the horizon, “Buddy” keeps dragging you back into the banal darkness. Like the kids, you deserve far better than whatever this lackluster production amounts to.