Subject: “Buffet Infinity” horror film review and music video
For: #movie #film #review #fun
Short link: https://dansu.org/review-buffet-infinity
Video link: https://dansu.org/video-come-on-out-tonight
This is a review of the 2025 analog horror film “Buffet Infinity”. The music video “Come On Out Tonight” that closes the film is included. To see the music video, click on the “Video” link above.
The antagonist in this film, Buffet Infinity, is a sentient and murderous restaurant from the metaphysical plane. Most reviews of the film don’t include the backstory which explains where Buffet Infinity came from. So, I’ve included that as well.
There are plenty of films that stand out as a little different. However, “Buffet Infinity” is (a) a horror film that (b) goes off the rails and yet (c) has earned a Rotten Tomato’s critics score of 100% paired with a general audience score of 64%. That combination is unusual.
If critics rate a film as 100% and the public shrugs it off as a 64%, you know that it’s not a generic “Marvel Superhero” or “Action Hero Kills the Bad Guys” film.
The viewer’s reaction to “Buffet Infinity” is often, “What did I just watch?”. I’ll explain the music video linked at the top above. This will clarify what’s going on in the film. So, again, spoiler alert.
“Buffet Infinity” is set in the 1980s. The story is told as a series of late-night commercials, news reports, and PSAs. Over the course of a few months, an eldritch horror settles into a small city, opens a buffet, and starts to absorb the world.
In the music video that closes the film, people who the buffet has killed and replaced sing a cheerful song urging the human survivors who are in hiding to “Come On Out Tonight” to be killed and replaced.
The back-story of the film, for the most part not shown on-screen, is as follows:
One of the key characters in “Buffet Infinity”, Langdon P. Hershey, is an S.F. writer-madman figure who seeks to create a science of the mind. Hershey seems to be based on L. Ron Hubbard [the founder of Scientology] or at least there are similarites.
Hershey believed that it was possible to use metaphysical means to travel through physical dimensions, possibly to alternate realities. He subjected his daughter Abigail to a related experiment that was intended to save her life. Instead, the experiment dissolved Abigail into fundamental forces of the metaphysical plane.
The deconstructed Abigail then either became or merged with a Cthulhu Mythos type entity. The entity returned to Earth, and to Abigail’s father’s city, as Buffet Infinity.
Hershey himself breaks down into metaphysical components in the course of events. He ends up as a 2D glitch that tries to reason with Buffet Infinity but is erased from existence by her. He’s the faceless 2D figure in the attached movie poster.
This film isn’t perfect, but the back-story does outdo “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Halloween” for depth and originality.
To sum up:
“Buffet Infinity” is more interesting than the typical Slasher-of-the-Month Club film.
Additionally, despite the unusual presentation, the film does include a few characters that are sympathetic and worth caring about. These include Jennifer Joy Avery, the plucky owner of an existing buffet that Buffet Infinity seeks to destroy and Ahmed, a pawn shop owner who intends to stay in business regardless of the end of the world.
Advisory: This film is more unsettling, in places, than any “slasher” film that I’ve seen.
Technical note: Ahmed is played by Ahmed Ahmed. So, one could say that the pawn-shop owner is Ahmed Ahmed’s Ahmed.
This is a scene from the music video “Come On Out Tonight”. The singers are Buffet Infinity’s replacements for the people that it’s absorbed. The woman in front is the Jennifer Joy Avery doppelganger and the man in the orange-red shirt is the Ahmed doppelganger. It’s a cheerful group; who wouldn’t join them?
I don’t presently recall ever seeing another horror film that was as off the rails as this one. But here’s a short #list of other horror or quasi-horror films that are at least original and unusual.
After (2012)
Annihilation (2018)
Coraline (2009)
Let the Right One In (2008) - The original and not the remake
NOPE (2022)
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Phantasm (1979)
Sunshine (2007)
The Cold Hour (2006)
To take a closer look at the attached movie poster, in most web browsers, right-click on the image, select “Open in New Window”, and resize the new window. Left-click on the image there may expand it further.
