Buffet Infinity

Let’s play a Halloween game together. This movie made me say this sentence out loud. “Oh my God, that (blank’s) (blank) turned into a (blank)!”

If you’ve seen Buffet Infinity and you can fill in the blanks, please let me know in the comments. I’ll pick one person with the right answer and send you a free copy of my e-book, Quiet Apocalypse.

Released in April of this year, Buffet Infinity is a horror film about a small town that slowly falls into the grasp of a Lovecraftian horror. This story is told entirely through local commercials.

Yes, you read that right.

It starts pretty simple. There are a number of local businesses in the town of Westridge. They’re pretty standard: a local lawyer, a mattress place, a pet daycare, a pawn shop, and a cute little sandwich shop. Then, a sinkhole opened up in the shopping center parking lot. Soon after, a new restaurant opened called Buffet Infinity.

One by one, the other shops closed under horrific circumstances. The news clips between show increasingly frantic information about people going missing. And in between these clips, we see the occasional pirated broadcast giving warnings. Eerie, cryptic warnings.

This movie was a work of art. To start with, I love a low-budget artsy film. They’re always scarier than the high-budget films with big names and CGI effects. Most of the people involved didn’t even have pictures on IMDB. Most of the movie consists of intentinally low budget commercials. And that’s part of why it’s so creepy. It almost feels real. I could have been watching KDKA, and wouldn’t have noticed the difference for a few minutes.

To that end, may I recommend watching this movie with commercials. I watched this on Shudder, and I do not have an ad-free subscription. And most of the time, I thought the movie was still going on through the ad break for way too long. It really enhances the surrealism.

Buffet Infinity is a scary movie. But it’s also a very funny movie. Especially the Buffet Infinity commercials, when they go after Jennifer’s sandwich shop. They go a long way to make fun of her sandwich sauce. It’s hilarious.

Much of the comedy in this movie comes from the Buffet trying to respond to allegations. Be sure to note that they have 30 to 27 employees, all with their own families and Social Security numbers. And every time they advertise their food, it’s wildly different. Once it’s a massive burger. Then it’s sushi. Then it’s Indian food that, if I’m being honest, looks very good. Like, I need some saag after watching this.

Now, you might ask about the gore factor. Yes, there is gore in this film. But it’s later in the movie. So please don’t watch this movie with kids. It’ll lure you into a false sense of security, and then there’s blood and body parts all over the place.

And despite the low budget, the gore is very well done. It’s almost too believable. It certainly made me lose my appetite.

Overall, Buffet Infinity is one of the best horror movies I’ve watched this year. It was dark, funny, and deeply unsettling. If you haven’t watched it yet, go watch it.

Want another horror movie review? Check out my review of Hokum.

My book, Station 86 Volume One, is available now on Amazon! It’s got two dark sci-fi stories about murder and mayhem on the station of First Contact.