If you grew up or had young kids between 1990 and 2010, you likely wound up watching at least a couple of episodes of “Barney & Friends” on PBS. You know, the big purple dinosaur that taught us all about sharing and to clean up after ourselves? I still sing the clean-up song to myself sometimes when I’m doing cleaning around the house. As part of the Sundance 2026 Midnights Section, veteran Adult Swim writer Casper Kelly, alongside co-writer Jamie King, brings us Buddy, which turns a Barney-esque show into a horror movie.
For many people, Barney is a cultural touchstone and helped shape how generations of children grew up. Its mix of costumed characters and child actors wasn’t necessarily a unique set-up, but it’s one of many shows of its kind that had a long run and has stood the test of time. This version stars Keegan-Michael Key as the voice of Buddy the Unicorn, who follows a group of children trapped in the television show as they try to find their way out and escape their tyrannical captor.
The film opens with nearly half an hour of uninterrupted footage of the television show, taking us through a few episodes where Freddy (Delaney Quinn) and Tyler (Tory Jacqui Malone) suspect that Buddy may not be who he says he is. This sets up the rest of the film as a constant game of cat and mouse, the kids trying to outwit Buddy and escape the show to return to the real world.
There is a B-plot set in the real world, featuring Cristin Milioti and Topher Grace, but this part of the film feels as if it were written solely to make it more than an extended Adult Swim sketch. It completely drains the concept of kids trapped in the show, and frankly, it shows us a boring world compared to the lively craft that went into creating the show’s set.
Buddy is outlandishly funny and has a few amazing kills akin to a Midnight Movie, but its best feature is Buddy’s creature design and the true monster that emerges towards the end. This, combined with the production design, is enough to recommend Buddy on its own. Kelly and team perfectly combine elements from shows like “Barney” and “Blue’s Clues,” and I kept forgetting that Buddy wasn’t a real character they had twisted into an evil version in the style of the so-called Poohniverse.
Not only is the creature design impressive, but Anna Kathleen’s production design for the show is simply immaculate. It stretches past the primary yard and house shown on the show, but the landscape beyond the fence is full of beautiful, practical sets.
While the crafts are stellar and the movie has some funny sequences, I wondered why Buddy ended up as a feature film rather than a short. The concept is certainly there, but there just isn’t enough of a story to stretch even a mere 95 minutes long. I get the need to have some adult stars like Milioti and Grace to bring in an audience, but they’re shoehorned in for most of their screen time. Milioti’s character adds something to the plot, at least, but by the end, I just wanted everything to finish.
By no means is Buddy bad. In fact, much of it is quite good, but there’s just something about them stretching this as thin as they could that rubs me the wrong way. The world of the Buddy TV show is visually outstanding, with amazing shots, whether they’re kills or different parts of the TV world the kids explore beyond Buddy’s fence. The world Kelly creates is incredible. Once we get past the initial shock of a kids’ show turning into nightmare fuel, the movie loses its luster and struggles to find its way for the rest of its runtime.
Review Courtesy of Cameron K. Ritter
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Worry Well Productions