Buddy the Detective: A Strange Little Musical Trip

Is it worth your time?

Honestly, only if you have a massive soft spot for grainy, old-fashioned oddities that make absolutely zero sense. If you need a tight script or, you know, things that actually follow the laws of physics, stay far away from this one. It's for the crowd that likes to dig through bargain bins of cinematic history just to see how weird things got back in the day. 🕵️‍♂️

The whole thing hinges on a musical sorcerer, which is a phrase I never thought I’d have to write down. Why does he use music to kidnap people? I have no idea. The movie doesn't bother explaining it, so I guess we just have to roll with the vibe.

Billy Bletcher is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Sometimes he’s genuinely menacing, and other times it just feels like he’s shouting at clouds while the camera rolls. There’s this one moment where he’s cackling in a doorway that goes on for way too long. It starts to feel like he forgot his next line and just decided to keep laughing until someone yelled cut. It’s genuinely uncomfortable to watch.

The pacing is all over the place, too. One minute we’re sprinting to find the girl, and the next, we’re stuck in a scene that feels like it was filmed in a basement with two lightbulbs. It reminds me a bit of the frantic, low-budget energy in The Monkey Mix-Up, where you get the feeling the crew was just making it up as they went along.

Random thoughts from the couch:

• The sound quality is rough. Like, 'is there a bee in the microphone' rough.
• The musical segments aren't exactly catchy. They’re more like auditory experiments.
• I swear the villain changes his hat three times in one scene. Or maybe I just needed a nap.

It’s not trying to be high art, that’s for sure. It’s just a weird little artifact. If you go in expecting a coherent detective story, you’re going to have a bad time. But if you want to watch something that feels like a fever dream you had after eating too much cheese before bed, you might get a kick out of it. 🧀

It’s definitely not as focused as something like The Penal Code, but then again, nothing about this movie is focused. It’s a mess, but at least it’s a confident mess. Sometimes that’s enough, right? Maybe not. But I watched the whole thing anyway.