Were it not for the black screen accompanied by sounds you’d associate with a horror movie, a viewer may otherwise get the wrong idea about “Buddy.”
After all, the film — shot almost entirely in Northeast Ohio last year and arriving in theaters nationwide this week — quickly cuts to a “Barney & Friends”-like children’s show hosted by its titular orange unicorn and complete with a cutesy theme song.
“He’s the pal who knows our name,” it goes. “He’s a king of fun and games.”
Soon, Buddy helps a girl who is afraid to dance, reminding her that being scared is an opportunity to be brave. She takes to his message, but, soon after, a boy on the show does not.
That child is quickly nowhere to be seen, and Buddy tells the other kids that the child liked dancing so much that Buddy sent him on a dancing tour in nearby Diamond City.
Moments later, with the kids elsewhere, we watch Buddy murder the well-meaning but nosy Nurse Nancy.
“Buddy” is the latest offering from the seemingly twisty, if not downright twisted, mind of Atlanta-based screenwriter, director and producer Casper Kelly, who worked for years on Adult Swim programs and probably is best known for the viral Adult Swim short film “Too Many Cooks.”
If you’ve seen that — as well as, perhaps, two movies he later made for Adult Swim as a freelancer, 2022’s “Adult Swim Yule Log” and its 2024 sequel, “Adult Swim Yule Log 2: Branchin’ Out,” you may have an idea of the kind of thing to expect when it comes to “Buddy.”
(The film is rated R “for bloody violence, some drug content and language — all involving children.”)
Along with the child actors, the movie boasts Keegan-Michael Key (“Key & Peele,” “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie”) as the voice of Buddy and Cristin Milioti (“Black Mirror,” “Palm Springs”) and Topher Grace (“Spider-Man 3,” “The Waterfront”) as a couple connected to a child on the show.
Given what goes on in the movie, you wonder if Kelly developed a hatred for a certain purple dinosaur from his kids watching “Barney & Friends.”
“I don’t know if I hate Barney,” Kelly says during a recent video interview from Atlanta. “But I did think, ‘boy, everyone sure is well-behaved on that show, and that’s not my experience with children myself. So what’s going on there? How are they so well-behaved? Is there something sinister underneath?’”
Cleveland- and Los Angeles-based Low Spark Films is one of the production companies responsible for bringing “Buddy” to its increasingly bloody life. That stems from a meeting between the company and another production entity, LA-based BoulderLight Pictures, which counts among its films the well-regarded Zach Cregger-directed offerings “Barbarian” (2022) and “Weapons” (2025) and was looking for a partner on “Buddy,” directed and co-written (with Jamie King) by Kelly, says Tyler Davidson, Low Spark president.
“We just felt it was such a unique vision of horror and something that just felt so bold and singular that we had to be a part of it,” says Davidson, on the phone recently from his home in Chagrin Falls.
“Tyler is great,” Kelly says. ”His track record speaks for itself. I mean, ‘Take Shelter,’ ‘Compliance,’ ‘Emily the Criminal’ — I could go on. He’s just got a great idiosyncratic taste.”
He’s also responsible for Michael Shannon — star of the aforementioned 2011 drama “Take Shelter,” whose filming locations included Grafton and LaGrange —providing voice work for “Buddy” as a ventriloquist’s doll named Willie.
“We had a nice conversation reminiscing about that film, and I think he and his team were more receptive to coming on board ‘Buddy’ in part because of that relationship.”
While most scenes involving Milioti and Grace were filmed at a house in Solon, the set for the fictional children’s show was constructed at Substance, an arm of Brooklyn, Ohio-based TRG Multimedia, and much of “Buddy” was captured there.
“Substance is also really great,” Kelly says.
He says he enjoyed the 25-day shoot in Northeast Ohio.
“I loved being in Cleveland,” he says. “I loved that, compared to Atlanta, there’s hardly any traffic. I tried my best to explore Cleveland and go to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, go to a Guardians game, but it was hard because working 12-hour days shooting — it’s so exhausting; I can barely get out of bed on the weekends. But I loved working in Cleveland — and eating pierogies — and would definitely come back.”
Related Articles
- Emily Wilson’s ‘Odyssey’ became a cultural flashpoint. Now, she’s retranslating the whole thing
- Rob Reiner’s son Jake opens up about parents’ murders 8 months later
- Dolly Parton streams skyrocket after her death, up 2,109% in the US and 1,280% globally
- Jaye P. Morgan, a jack-of-all-trades entertainer who was a pop and TV star, dies at 94
- ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ review: Live-action-meets-animation romp is fun stuff
And, he says, Never Say Dive and Prosperity Social Club, in the city’s Old Brooklyn and Tremont neighborhoods, respectively, became regular hangouts for the crew.
“When my family came to visit, we were looking at Zillow just out of fun — like, ‘Oh, how much would it be to buy a house if we moved here?’ So highly, highly recommend all filmmakers out there shoot in Ohio.”
Kelly is not afraid to play with structure in his filmmaking, and with “Buddy,” he’s walking a tightrope in terms of the mood, and Davidson says all of that was evident in the screenplay ahead of the shoot.
“Casper’s just such a unique guy and had such a strong vision for this film and what the tone was going to be and how he was going to execute it,” he says.
As Kelly tells it, however, it wasn’t that easy.
“Everything’s difficult — it really is,” he says. “I’m always nervous. I’m always nervous that I’m belly-flopping.”
Both Davidson and Kelly say the movie was warmly received when it debuted in January at the Sundance Film Festival and at other screenings, including its recent showing as the Opening Night Film at Lincoln Center’s Scary Movies XIV festival on Aug. 12.
“It’s a really fun communal experience,” Davidson says. “There’s nothing like experiencing something unique and original with an audience that is experiencing that same thing with you.
“And I think that the less people know about this movie going in, maybe the better — because I think that it’s meant to provoke strong reactions and be entertaining, and we’re hoping that it delivers on that level.”
Original article
Comments