#31Days: Buddy (2026)

content warning: blood, gore, violence against women, violence against children, foul language, drug use, grieving

Everyone loves Buddy. Everyone. Or else.

To describe the plot of Buddy is, in itself, an exercise in horror. The marketing campaign of writer/director Casper Kelly and writer Jamie King's 90s children TV-series-nostalgia horror Buddy is incredibly sharp and seemingly unavoidable without revealing much of what happens in the film.

Buddy is an orange unicorn who lives in Happy Town with a friendly group of children. Whenever the children need help, they cry out, "Oh, Buddy!" and he appears to help them solve the day with song and dance. Everyone learns important life lessons, like "you have to be scared to be brave," before the credits roll. They all sing the theme song of the show and the cycle starts again. A new day. A new challenge. A new song. A new credit scroll.

Except it's not always the same. Sometimes, the children, or the anthropomorphic objects in the park, or the adult workers in Happy Town don't want to play a game or sing a song. Buddy doesn't like that.

Buddy is best described as experimental horror. The repeating narrative structure of episodes of a TV show is very much in line with Kelly's infamous Adult Swim short "Too Many Cooks." It's not just that these things are happening in a retro TV format; it's that they keep happening and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

The changes to cast, set, and props leave permanent scars on the world. The credits scroll that typically makes everything go back to normal doesn't work the same when the children become aware that something is wrong. The forever-long good memories of always being in Happy Town stop being good memories when the characters learn what can happen if the show does not go the right way. It's a fascinating exploration of the machinations of toxic work environments and predators hiding in plain sight behind the scenes of children TV shows.

Complicity becomes part of the horror. We are, after all, watching the show. We're tapping our toes and singing along with the catchy tunes. We're laughing at the cheesy jokes. But we're also sitting there, silent in the theater, unable to step into a system that is notoriously difficult to break into, let alone enact meaningful change to. When is an orange unicorn not just an orange unicorn? When he's a nightmarish vision of everything wrong with Hollywood's self-destructive power cycle and willingness to sacrifice those who step out of line.

You really do have to be scared to be brave.

Buddy is playing in theaters.

#31Days is an annual tradition around here, even if the results aren't always published. For decades now, I've watched and reviewed a different horror film every day in the month of October. 2026 sees the return of the reviews to Sketching Details in real time.