“A brave girl and her friends must escape a kids television show.” That’s all we knew about Buddy before its midnight Sundance premiere at the Library Centre Theatre. The precise plot details were wisely kept under wraps to preserve the film’s immediate, chilling turn: after a saccharine theme song introduces us to a “cuddly, snuggly” plush orange unicorn, he starts to axe his child co-stars. 

Buddy is a logical next step for Casper Kelly. The director and co-writer is known his viral Adult Swim short Too Many Cooks—a 70s/80s sitcom intro parody that is slowly invaded by a serial killer—and the “Cheddar Goblin” commercial from Mandy, where the mascot from a retro Mac and Cheese commercial vomits the pasta onto smiling children. Buddy effectively fuses these two premises, stylishly recreating the vibrant sets of 90s children’s TV but challenging the nostalgic comfort, all while indulging in some offbeat mascot horror that should charm fans of Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Whether a sitcom or a commercial, Kelly’s interest lies in the playful violation of nostalgic spaces that are supposed to be soothing. His new feature’s conceit is an exciting one, and with superb puppetry and set design, Buddy excels in its vivid world-building and mines the horror comedy of its wholly original premise for all its worth. The opening scenes where Buddy (realised through Sergey Zhuravsky’s physical performance and Keegan-Michael Key’s voice acting) offs poor Josh (Luke Speakman) for not dancing with him are equal parts tense and hilarious, and things come to a head when Freddy (Delaney Quinn), Hannah (Madison Skyy Polan), and Oliver (Tristan Borders) make a run for it.

When the disturbing TV show parody threatens to wear thin, Kelly diverts us to the real-world, where mother-of-two Grace (Cristin Milioti) has been struggling with a foggy brain and the odd case of suddenly screaming at an empty chair. When Buddy appears suddenly on her TV screen and she can’t find any record of the series on the internet, Grace becomes convinced that the show is behind her pervailing sense of unease. Her comically unsupportive husband Ben (Topher Grace) is more frustrated at her than anything, and Milioti makes for a gripping lead in this segment of the film before we return to the TV show.

As for the rest of the ensemble, putting a twisted spin on his ‘Toad’ voice from the Super Mario films, Keegan-Michael Key’s voice acting as the titular, deranged orange unicorn is a delightfully menacing effort. Meanwhile, the child actors, led by an excellent Delaney Quinn, nail the zany, heightened performance style demanded by the film’s horror-flavoured pastiche, as do Michael Shannon and Patton Oswalt in a pair of voice cameos.

Buddy begins as a singularly original thrill-ride, but even with all its exciting elements in place, its messy latter half overdoes the gimmick. Just when the real-world plot is picking up, we’re abruptly transported back to the realm of the series. The shift is jarring, the pacing confused, and Kelly’s once amusing dark humour devolves into one too many off colour jokes—while the repetitive conceit of the evil unicorn who promises the children and whimsical puppets that he “loves” them before brutally murdering them stalls the film's momentum.

While failing to stick the landing, Buddy earns plenty of points for originality and, for much of its runtime, is an inspired update on the horror genre. But it is decidedly a film of two halves—and ultimately proves too glibly mean-spirited for its own good.