Writer/director Casper Kelly returns with his indie slasher, “Buddy.” Kelly, whose previous work includes “Adult Swim Yule Log” and the “Fun Size” segment in “V/H/S/Halloween,” brings a sense of whimsy to the typical slasher style and setup. He co-wrote the script with Jamie King (“Jessica Jones,” “Impulse”) and shows great admiration for both slasher horror and children’s daytime programming.
Ahead of its August 28 theatrical release, “Buddy” now has an official teaser trailer to whet fans’ appetites for what’s to come.
‘Buddy’ Takes Direct Cues From Barney
If “Buddy” feels familiar, that’s because it is. The most notable source of inspiration comes from the 1990s hit children’s TV show, “Barney & Friends.” In the teaser, viewers get a glimpse into the fictional show “It’s Buddy,” featuring its host in an orange-red unicorn suit (Sergey Zhuravsky). Keegan-Michael Key voices the soon-to-be-iconic Buddy.
As the camera opens, you get your first video look at Buddy, as a distorted, but catchy, tune plays in the background. Children’s cheers can also be heard. “Oh, Buddy, he’s cuddly, snuggly, our best friend,” rings the refrain. The images grow more sinister, spliced with children looking around frantically and shots of bloody kids gazing lifelessly at the screen. It’s certainly a far cry from the Barney of yore.
“Buddy” features several puppeteers working in front of and behind the camera. One of these creatives was a big Barney fan and “knew all the people that worked on Barney,” Casper Kelly told Bloody Disgusting at Sundance. A technical approach was brought to the titular character, regarding the body suit actor, the voice actor, and a performer off-screen working a remote control for the character’s mouth.
“That allows the suit actor to listen and act, too, because it’s very hard, because you cannot see a lot,” he added. “All you can see is out of the mouth, which is not much. It allows him to focus on just the physical acting.”
The film also stars Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Tristan Borders, Madison Skyy Polan, Caleb “CJ” Williams, Luke Speakman, Patton Oswalt, Clint Howard, Michael Shannon and Topher Grace.
Childhood Horror Is All The Rage
“Buddy” joins a growing list of childhood horror that includes “Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey” and its sequel, various Mickey Mouse-centric adaptations (e.g., “Screamboat”), “The Banana Splits Movie,” “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” and “Bambi: The Reckoning.” Childhoods might be forever ruined, but many stories, including “Buddy,” work well reconfigured into horrifying scenarios.
Around the release of “Screamboat,” David Howard Thornton, most known for playing Art the Clown in the “Terrifier” franchise, explained how he recreated an iconic character like Mickey Mouse for a modern horror audience. “There’s a certain style they had in the old black and white films, where you didn’t have a lot of dialogue, so you had these characters bopping around to the music at all times,” he told Starburst Magazine, noting that he watched the 1928 original animated short, “Steamboat Willie” for the role. He also added in a dash of Bugs Bunny, Chucky, “Leprechaun” and a real-life feral rat into the mix.
That physical understanding of character colors many performances in the childhood/public domain horror world. From Winnie the Pooh and Piglet in the “Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey” universe to the transformation of Bambi’s mother in “Bambi: The Reckoning,” every character requires specific movement and voice choices.
With “Buddy,” audiences around the world might be screaming that their childhoods have been ruined, and maybe that’s a good thing.
