The new movie Buddy by Casper Kelly and Jamie King, is a comedy horror about a group of kids that are trapped inside an uncanny 1990’s childrens tv show, where they must find a way to escape their violent, dictator unicorn host.

 

The movie came to theaters on August 28, 2026, and has already received an 89% approval rating based on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. Which comes from the 123 critic reviews written. 109 being positive reviews and only 14 being negative reviews.

 

The movie stars well known American comedian Keegan-Michael Key of Key and Peele as Buddy the unicorn. And American actress and musician Cristin Milioti as Grace. 

 

It’s interesting to see how the movie touches on the dark reality of toxic positivity. Which is shown a lot throughout the movie with how Buddy constantly stays sounding positive while doing sinister things.

 

John Sanchez, senior, said, “I really liked it, it was definitely weird but it was pretty funny. And the gore was not too crazy but it was still really entertaining.”

 

Most teens gave it good reviews, but it does make you wonder what age group the movie is actually targeting 

 

Chandler Alston, junior, said, “I’m not gonna lie, before I saw it I thought it was like a funny kids movie or something. But after watching it, it’s definitely not a kids movie, unless they like gore and stuff.”

 

In my personal opinion, the movie was really funny because I enjoy dark comedies. I felt like the dark themes mixing with the very bright colors was very interesting. I loved the way it almost immediately got into the horror aspect. Something I noticed was that even the gore wasn’t super frightening because it looked very fake. For example, anytime there was a lot of blood, it all just mostly looked like bright red paint. 

 

The movie is rated R, but its deceptive marketing can confuse some into thinking its a kids movie which has caused some backlash. Some parents have brought their kids to see the movie thinking that it was for kids because of its colorful 1990’s sort of kids tv aesthetic.