Sinister, Surreal, and Weirdly Addictive

MOVIE REVIEW
Buffet Infinity
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Genre: Comedy, Thriller
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 39m
Director(s): Simon Glassman
Writer(s): Simon Glassman
Cast: Kevin Singh, Claire Theobald, Donovan Workun, Allison Bench
Where to Watch: shown at the 2025 Fantasia Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: It works, even though it shouldn’t, it really shouldn’t! Simon Glassman’s BUFFET INFINITY doesn’t just bend the rules—it microwaves them on high until they bubble and explode. What begins as a satire of small-town local television quickly spirals into a hallucinatory, absurdist descent into the mind of a community being devoured by its own identity. This is weird cinema at its best: committed, chaotic, and unnervingly hypnotic.

The film sets itself (kind of) in Westridge County, Alberta—home to crumbling infrastructure, desperate advertising, and one of the most bizarre televised rivalries you’ll ever witness. Jenny’s Sandwich Shop is a local favorite, but a new player has entered the game: the mysterious, omnipresent Buffet Infinity. What begins as a campy competition for customers slowly reveals a deeper, more disturbing shift in the town’s fabric. Red screens flashing ominous messages, and one massive sinkhole threatening to swallow the place whole—both metaphorically and literally.

The brilliance of BUFFET INFINITY lies in its structure. Glassman builds the narrative through hundreds of stylized, fictional low-budget TV ads. He essentially weaponizes the banality of local commercial breaks, turning them into a storytelling engine. Each ad click inches us closer to something unexplainable, each infomercial doubling as a narrative breadcrumb. The transitions between wannabe top-tier lawyers, over-the-top product pitches, and food ads aren’t just funny—they’re clues, and sometimes warnings.

The cast, comprising talents like Kevin Singh, Claire Theobald, Donovan Workun, and Allison Bench, lean into the absurdity with the kind of conviction that makes the comedy land even harder. Theobald, in particular, has a magnetic presence—even when her character appears onscreen for only brief moments. But what ties it all together is the presence of an unnamed viewer flipping through the channels. This figure is our surrogate, the lens through which we experience the unraveling of Westridge County. Their passive channel-hopping reflects a broader critique of how numb we've become to everything from disaster to advertising—and how often the line between the two is impossibly thin.

Buffett Infinity itself becomes more than just a restaurant—it becomes an obsession—a black hole of branding and desire. There’s a Lovecraftian undertone in how it seeps into every program, every ad, every person. What Glassman captures is not just comedy—it’s a psychological commentary about consumer culture, media overload, and the decay of community identity through commodification. In less capable hands, this might have become a series of disconnected skits. Instead, it forms a clear and eerie arc that builds to something unsettling and unforgettable.

There are unmistakable echoes of films and shows like this, but where they play with the idea, this one takes it to the extreme, and even the glitch-core terror of films like VIDEODROME feels right at home here. BUFFET INFINITY doesn’t feel like a copy of any of those—it’s a strange beast all its own. The editing deserves special mention: stitching together mock advertisements into a cohesive arc is a high-wire act, and Glassman doesn’t just stay balanced—he tap-dances the entire way across. It’s a montage of madness that somehow forms a satisfying whole.

But it’s not without its challenges. The pacing, while often engaging, can become a struggle for viewers unfamiliar with the concept. It doesn’t follow any conventional patterns, and some stretches feel intentionally disorienting. That said, this disorientation works in the film’s favor. Like the viewer glued to their remote, you may not know what you’re watching—but you won’t be able to look away.

No matter how detailed the explanation, nothing can fully capture the brilliance of experiencing BUFFET INFINITY firsthand. It’s the kind of film that short-circuits your expectations in the best possible way. Watching it feels like being dropped into a fever dream stitched together from public access nightmares and biting satire—all without a moment to catch your breath. There’s an indescribable cadence to its chaos, a deliberate messiness that somehow forms a perfectly controlled descent into absurdity. Trying to relay the experience in words is like trying to describe a dream before it slips away—it’s better felt than explained, and once you’ve seen it, you’ll understand why no synopsis could ever truly prepare you for it.

BUFFET INFINITY is what happens when experimental meets strong thematic intent. There’s a purpose behind every cutaway, a sly commentary behind every commercial. And yet, Glassman never sacrifices humor in pursuit of depth. This is laugh-out-loud weirdness, but the kind that sticks with you long after the lights come up. It’s not just about a sandwich shop war. It’s about how we lose ourselves in the static. How towns, people, and meaning can dissolve when identity becomes performance, and reality becomes reruns.

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[photo courtesy of PETERSON POLARIS]

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