Watching “Buffet Infinity” feels like that weird, late night moment that we’ve all had: when you doze off with the television on and wake up trapped in a surreal, glitchy, sleepy stupor, channel-surfing fever dream. This is one weird movie, and its quirkiness is absolutely mesmerizing.
Presented entirely through a barrage of surreal, low budget commercials, the film is the trippy brainchild of director Simon Glassman. It’s basically a film built for short attention spans, and if your brain is wired by scrolling or flipping channels every 10 seconds, you’re going lock into its rhythm immediately. Every cut throws a new fake ad, a new joke, or a new layer of weird at you. Don’t get too comfortable, though, because if you blink, you’ll miss something.
The narrative star of the film is Buffet Infinity itself, a bizarre restaurant that starts as just another aggressively marketed local business and becomes a sentient, expanding entity. What begins as a simple rivalry between small town spots (shoutout to Jenny’s Sandwich Shop) escalates into full-on commercial warfare, with local businesses trying to outdo each other through increasingly deranged ads. It’s hilarious at first, then unsettling, and then suddenly you’re watching a full-blown capitalist hellscape unfold.
The absurdist vibe is very much in line with experimental humor, combining awkward timing, anti-comedy, and sometimes even absolute nonsense. I guess you could say there’s something for everyone, from cult-like undertones, cryptic messages, sinkholes, and a sense of dread that’s plaguing Westridge County.
Fake TV programming is used as a storytelling device. The film is presented in a way where the audience is following an unnamed viewer flipping through channels, watching a town unravel in real time through ads for sandwiches, lawyers, used cars, and whatever else pops up. Glassman stitches hundreds of these bits into a narrative that actually builds toward something disturbing.
All of this weirdness clearly isn’t going to work for everyone. The repetition is maddening, and if you’ve got a longer attention span or you’re looking for a traditional plot, this one is a lot to sit through. The film definitely tests your patience before it rewards you, and you’ll find that you are either completely on its wavelength or totally checked out.
If you’re into experimental, absurdist comedy-horror, “Buffet Infinity” is wildly creative. It’s genuinely one of the more bizarre and original films in recent memory.
By: Louisa Moore
Screen Zealots 