Most premieres are built for photographers. The world premiere of Buddy: The Sing-Along Version was built for the fans, and that’s why it works so well as horror marketing.
Roadside Attractions and Saban Films held the event Tuesday night at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California. It came just ahead of the Sing-Along Version’s nationwide release on October 2. Instead of a red carpet, they rolled out an orange one.
The unicorn left the screen
Casper Kelly’s R-rated horror comedy is about a painfully cheerful kids’ show whose orange unicorn host, voiced by Keegan-Michael Key, turns sinister when one child won’t play along. That unicorn is the movie’s whole identity, and the premiere leaned all the way into it.
Official footage from the night shows fans on the orange carpet in orange outfits and unicorn horns. The theater’s listing promised a costume contest, and plenty of people clearly came to compete. A walk-around Buddy posed on the carpet, greeted fans on the sidewalk and later danced on stage.
It’s a little absurd, and that’s the point. The mascot showed up to work the crowd like a kids’ show character at a mall appearance. The difference is that everyone in the building knows what Buddy gets up to in the film.
An event, not a red carpet
Buddy opened August 28, and according to its distributors it passed $25 million in its first five weeks. Holding a new world premiere days before a second nationwide push makes going back to the theater feel like an event you show up for.
This wasn’t about stars posing in front of a backdrop. It was about building a weird little ritual around an orange unicorn and inviting everyone to join in. For a horror comedy set on a kids’ show where not playing along is where the trouble starts, that’s exactly the right pitch.
