Buddy

When you’re a grown-up surfing through kids’ TV, you feel it immediately: that uncanny something lurking beneath all those talking bicycles and good-humored cuddly dinosaurs. And Casper Kelly—celebrated grand master of making seemingly harmless content spooky ever since his viral Adult Swim intervention piece Too Many Cooks—uses precisely that feeling to fuel his feature debut Buddy. The titular orange unicorn is every child’s best buddy, singing and dancing with them through twenty-minute episodes—until the first kid disappears, giving his friends cause for concern. A nimble, deeply unsettling, utterly unique mash-up of brain-frying late-’90s kids’ show, vicious satire, and hearty gore. So much fun, you guys! (Markus Keuschnigg)