Buddy

Dig, if you will, Caspar Kelly. This cat has been around since the turn of the century, doing Adult Swim things like writing for "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law" and "Aqua Teen Hunger Force". Then he had a kind of breakthrough with "Too Many Cooks", and its spiritual successor "Adult Swim Yule Log". He's behind the series "Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell," along with writing powerhouse Dave Willis ("Squidbillies", "Aqua Teen", "Space Ghost" and "Sealab 2021").

What I'm getting at is this: There's no way to tell whether or not this personage can write and direct a 90 minute feature about a Barney-like kid's TV character who traps victims in his imaginary land and demands they worship him and live by his rules.

And this movie starts with two or three episodes of the "Buddy" show, where we get to see a fairly straight-up "Barney and Friends" clone, and the odd cracks that appear around the edges—very, very reminiscent of "Too Many Cooks". It goes on a bit long for my taste, and I feared the movie was going to be just 15 episodes of this inane show getting crazier and crazier.

Then we break away to the real world, and we get some context. A family of four is kind of sleepwalking through their life when the mother, Grace (Cristin Milioti), begins to remember that they used to be a family of five. 

There are some nice twists-and-turns here and the whole experience is entertaining and also a little unsavory (like "Too Many Cooks"), and then Clint Howard shows up.

Then I'm sitting there realizing..."Oh, Buddy is an orange creature with a golden tuft of unruly hair. He's a Trump analogue."

Sort of disappointingly, this turns out to be true. But it doesn't really matter. It's a fairly easy watch, it does a good job of teasing its universe, it could've ended ten minutes sooner. That's about how I sum it up. 

The puppetry is fun. (Props to the guys wearing those big suits.)  The special effects—blending '90s-era children's show aesthetic with gore—is effective and strikes the right balance of fun and horror.

The cast is good: Michael Keegan-Key as Buddy. Gratuitous Michael Shannon. Gratuitous Patton Oswalt. Gratuitous Topher Grace. Milioti is kind of perfect, delivering sincere mother energy on what is, after all, a very low-budget, very artificial set. The kids all do a good job and fit into the '90s archetypes.

Shout outs to cinematographer Zach Kuperstien (Barbarian) and probably Kelly himself for nailing the look and switching seamlessly between the two radically different looks; and to Michael Yezerski (105 IMDB credits, nothing I've seen) who did the music. 

Children in peril, obviously, so if that will diminish your enjoyment, you'll want to give it a miss. On the other hand, Clint Howard is one of those children, so.