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Gray Areas: ‘Buddy’ is Barney as abusive father

As a father of young children in the '90s, I'm all-too-familiar with "Barney & Friends," "Bear in the Big Blue House," "The Big Comfy Couch" and other shows targeted to the preschool set.

Burrowed in the deep recesses of my brain are the lyrics to Barney songs I can sing with greater accuracy than anything released this century by artists I actually like.

There are times I fantasized about the purple dinosaur's demise, but I never feared he might kill me.

That might change for Gen Z, millennials and their parents with the new movie "Buddy," which was shot in greater Cleveland and produced by Chagrin Falls native Tyler Davidson, whose films include "Take Shelter," "Compliance," "The Kings of Summer" and "Emily the Criminal" (all recommended).

It's set in a world straight out of a 1990s children's television show with an orange unicorn doll that becomes larger than life when anyone says his name -- Buddy. He's surrounded by cheerful singing and dancing children and friendly characters, some human (the mailman, the nurse) and some not (Mr. Mailbox and a talking backpack named Strappy). And he offers life lessons on bravery, cleanliness and other topics with a song and a happy tone.

However, when one of the kids declines to participate in Buddy's dance party, let’s just say the unicorn proves that the horn in his forehead is not just magical, it's lethal. And the other kids start looking for a way out of this fantasyland.

Director Casper Kelly (who co-wrote the film with Jamie King) and his creative team perfectly capture the look of those children's shows from the late '90s/early 2000s, simultaneously candy-colored and kind of washed out in the waning days of 480i-resolution televisions and VHS tapes.

The young actors nail that sickeningly upbeat style demanded on those shows and convey legitimate fear as that world crumbles around them. The voice cast (including Keegan-Michael Key as Buddy, Patton Oswalt as Strappy and Michael Shannon as a puppet named Willie) brings personality and panache to their nonhuman characters.

"Barney & Friends" is the dominant influence here, but there are touches of the other shows mentioned above in the mix as well as "Thomas the Tank Engine," "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" and even "The Wizard of Oz." The juxtaposition of that world and the carnage that follows definitely provides some twisted humor. And if you've ever thought, "I'd love to see Barney rip the face off that goody-two-shoes locomotive Thomas," your wish has been granted.

However, the film struggles when it tries to stitch together some of its extreme tonal shifts into a cohesive whole.

The movie is being marketed as a horror film, which makes sense, considering the earnings for recent Gen Z horror hits "Obsession" and "Backrooms," but it's really a shock comedy. "Buddy" is over-the-top grisly and gory as its title character demands fidelity to his rules, but it lacks that tension and sense of foreboding integral to good horror films.

It also tells two parallel stories. The other one exists in the real world where Grace, a mother played by Cristin Millioti, has a nagging feeling that something is off, something (or someone) is missing in her life. No one else, including Topher Grace as her husband, takes those fears seriously.

These scenes unfold with the ferocity of a drama about a woman willing to go to extraordinary lengths to save her family. As the two storylines converge, that approach clashes with the snarky, winking style of the action in Buddy-land, and Kelly never finds a way to connect those disparate threads.

"Buddy" isn't opening locally this Friday, but a couple of Cleveland theaters will host special events in conjunction with the film's opening weekend.

Davidson will do a Q&A following the 7:30 p.m. Friday screening at Cinemark Valley View. Executive producers Ryan Kelly and Geoff Yaw and costume designer Shawna-Nova Foley will take part in a Q&A moderated by Mike Wendt with the Greater Cleveland Film Commission following the 7:30 p.m. Saturday screening at the Capitol Theatre.

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him as agray@tribtoday.com.