Sundance 2026: Casper Kelly’s ‘Buddy’ Twists Kids’ TV Nostalgia into a Bloody, Surreal Horror-Comedy
At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where midnight screenings often deliver the festival’s wildest surprises, director Casper Kelly has unveiled Buddy, his long-awaited feature debut that expands the deranged logic of his viral Adult Swim short Too Many Cooks into a full-length nightmare about friendly mascots gone feral.
Premiering in the Midnight section on January 22, 2026, Buddy stars Cristin Milioti as a woman (or perhaps a figure trapped within the show’s warped reality) alongside a young lead played by Delaney Quinn, with a stacked supporting cast including Topher Grace, Keegan-Michael Key, Michael Shannon, and Patton Oswalt. The story centers on a group of amnesiac children imprisoned inside a saccharine children’s television program hosted by Buddy—a bright orange, humanoid unicorn with an unnervingly cheerful demeanor—who gradually reveals a tyrannical, murderous side.
In interviews conducted at the Variety Studio (presented by Audible), Kelly explained his inspiration: he wanted to “play” with the sinister undertones already lurking in many beloved kids’ shows. Drawing from the eerie compliance demanded by programs like Barney & Friends and Blue’s Clues, Kelly imagines what happens when the cheerful host rebels against the script—turning songs, games, and life lessons into tools of psychological and physical terror.
The film blends analog horror aesthetics (think grainy VHS distortion and public-access production values) with gross-out comedy and existential dread. Early festival reactions have been sharply divided. Screen Daily’s Tim Grierson called it a “smart, fresh horror-comedy” where a kids’ TV show “takes a deadly turn,” praising its bold tone. IndieWire hailed it as “the first great midnight movie of 2026,” crediting Kelly’s ability to sustain absurdity while landing dark punches. Deadline described it as a “gross-out satire on bland kids’ TV” that carries an unexpected existential weight.
Yet not all reviews have been glowing. The Guardian labeled it a “high-concept horror misfire,” arguing the premise—essentially “what if Barney killed kids?”—wears thin over 95 minutes and would have worked better as a short. The Wrap echoed that sentiment, noting that while the initial conceit is strong, the film “comes apart at the seams” once it moves beyond its clever setup, feeling repetitive despite Milioti’s committed performance.
Kelly, best known for Adult Swim cult hits like Too Many Cooks (2014) and the polarizing Adult Swim Yule Log (2022), shifts here from bite-sized surrealism to a more sustained narrative. Producers include BoulderLight Pictures (behind Barbarian) and Low Spark Films, suggesting the project has commercial ambitions beyond the festival circuit. No wide theatrical or streaming release date has been announced yet, but given the buzz around mascot horror and nostalgia subversion, Buddy is already generating cult-status predictions from outlets like Cinemast.net and Professor Horror.
Whether Buddy ultimately lands as a fresh genre standout or a one-joke stretch, it confirms Kelly as one of the most unpredictable voices in modern horror-comedy. In an era when childhood icons are repeatedly exhumed for scares—from Five Nights at Freddy’s to Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey—this unicorn-fueled descent stands out for its personal, auteur-driven weirdness. Sundance audiences laughed, winced, and debated late into the night; the question now is whether the rest of the world will get a chance to join the chaos.
For fans of twisted nostalgia and unhinged mascot mayhem, Buddy might just become the breakout horror gem of 2026. Or, at the very least, the one that makes you side-eye your old VHS tapes a little harder.
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