‘Buffet Infinity’ Movie Review [Fantasia 2025]: Channel-Surfing Horror Satire Loses the Signal

Photo from Fantasia Film Festival

From Jeff Nelson

Simon Glassman’s Buffet Infinity has a clever idea and a snappy sense of humor, but it doesn’t quite pull off the execution. Reminiscent of a feature-length Robot Chicken skit, this spinoff of the found footage format needs finessing.

Low-budget local commercials and news reports are threaded together to tell the alarming tale of two restaurants wrestling for a foothold in the town of Westridge County. Sandwich shop owner Jenny (Allison Bench) and the mega Buffet Infinity trade public jabs in a hilarious exchange, especially when the former’s “secret sauce” gets verbally dragged through the mud.

Ads for the local law firm, pawn shop, mattress store, and insurance company fill in the space. They riff on late-night television ad tropes with similarly sharp humor, but take a progressively unhinged turn in response to strange happenings around Westridge County. A sinkhole and a droning hum drive the population to madness and even disrupt birds’ flight patterns. Sinister messages flash on television screens mid-advertisement, hinting at a greater evil, as local restaurant workers suddenly go missing.

Though Glassman’s concept flirts with horror, he embraces a tone of dark comedy instead. He gives the illusion of channel surfing through advertisements that only make sense when they’re stitched together. Subliminal messaging turns very overt as the town’s impending threat targets one vulnerable group after another. 

Style choices give personality and texture to the footage. Recorded on a VHS tape, the dated ads are full of distortion, grain, and recording issues. The format falls apart toward the end, leaning further into a found footage aesthetic that feels like a segment pulled from the V/H/S franchise. 

Buffet Infinity should be commended for its genre-pushing innovation that feels fresh. Unfortunately, not all experiments work. Light on narrative, utterly absent of characters, and erratically structured, it doesn’t justify the bloated runtime. The novelty of a movie entirely pieced together from local TV ads wears off and overstays its welcome. For all its hilarious buildup, the film ultimately fizzles.

Rating: 2.5/5

Buffet Infinity played at Fantasia 2025 on July 28th.

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