Kane Parsons' box office smash "Backrooms" opened Hollywood's eyes to the possibilities of the analog horror genre, and if audiences are hungry for more, filmmaker Casper Kelly might be the beneficiary of some serendipitous timing. The first teaser trailer for "Buddy," Kelly's first theatrical feature film, gives us a glimpse at the latest strange world he's created — one that seems bright and shiny, but the brightness belies the fact that something is deeply, profoundly, unsettlingly wrong. Here's the movie's official synopsis:
Remember BUDDY — the bright orange unicorn and star of that classic childrens' television show who brought joy and life lessons into your living room? Inside the colorful world of "It's Buddy!", a group of children spend their days singing, dancing, and helping Buddy spread happiness. But when one child refuses to play along, Buddy is not pleased and cracks begin to appear in this seemingly perfect world.
The film has an excellent cast that includes Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Topher Grace, Keegan-Michael Key, Michael Shannon, and Patton Oswalt, and even though you don't see most of them in this teaser, you do get to see the real star of the film: That eerie vibe that Kelly's been able to capture so well in his previous work.
Buddy director Casper Kelly knows how to use nostalgia as a tool
Roadside Attractions
For years, we've been tracking the ways that Hollywood has tried to weaponize nostalgia, whether it's remaking movies as TV shows or soullessly remaking animated movies in live-action. Studios often tap into nostalgia in embarrassingly transparent ways, but sometimes, a filmmaker will actually use it as a tool that feels crucial to the story they're telling. Casper Kelly seems to have made it a key part of his repertoire, at least going back as far as his genre-busting 2014 short "Too Many Cooks," which starts as a parody of the opening credits sequences in sitcoms of the '80s and '90s before morphing into something far more elaborate, haunting, and undefinable. After making the formally daring made-for-TV movie "Adult Swim Yule Log" in 2022, he teased "Buddy" to us very briefly in an interview, and now it seems like he and co-writer Jamie King have put everything they've learned to work for the big screen.
In addition to some period-appropriate creature and puppet designs, this teaser showcases blink-and-you'll-miss-them looks at a bloody animatronic, a child with a hole in his chest, and a horrific eye gazing through a hole, all contributing to a — dare I say it — Lynchian feeling that there's a nasty rot under the surface of seemingly innocuous Americana.
"Buddy" made it onto our list of the 10 best movies we saw at this year's Sundance Film Festival, and I can't wait to check out this sure-to-be-surreal nightmare for myself when it hits theaters on August 28, 2026.
English (US) ·