Buddy is just the latest modern horror to recreate (then dismantle) our childhoods
Building the past and filming it as such for an even better scare in a new string of horror films, like Buddy, intent on going back in time.
Recent horror movies, such as Buddy , Backrooms , and Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma, often use a vintage aesthetic to recreate and dismantle childhood memories. These films look like well-worn artifacts from the '80s, '90s, and early aughts, capturing that nostalgic "remember when" feeling. The sets are bright and colorful, reminiscent of overgrown playgrounds, with objects that speak and sport friendly faces, only to be marred when the horror takes over.
The music and dance moves are from a bygone era, about 30 years before today's audience. Casper Kelly's Buddy, for example, relies on looking like a vaguely remembered children's show. It uses old TV aesthetics, such as upbeat opening numbers, transition wipes, and end credits scrolling over a closing song, to create a meta format that's more than just an aesthetic; it's a key plot device.
Buddy, the disturbed unicorn, uses the retro TV look to delineate different spaces and even employs it to return to his original state after being damaged by the kids trying to escape. Kane Parsons' Backrooms switches between film and video formats, set in the 1990s. Characters film a commercial with a camcorder, playing with the gear as people used to do for no-budget, homegrown ads.
When it's time to prove the existence of the eerie architectural hell, Clark uses the same camera, filming a grainy movie-within-the-movie. Jane Schoenbrun's latest two features, I Saw The TV Glow and Camp Miasma, play with the format and visual conventions of '90s TV shows and '80s slashers, creating a quasi-Buffy tribute called The Pink Opaque.
The image quality of these fictional older films is intentionally aged, with dark grainy looks, to make the horror appear more real. The film uses recognizable aesthetic details to blur the boundaries between reality and the screen, making the audience question the authenticity of what they're seeing. This technique of recreating the past look of old recordings and broadcast-quality TV shows adds a tactile visual difference, making these films appear more real than those fully committed to crisp, easily manipulated digital images.
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