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| Images courtesy of Yellow Veil Pictures |
Advertisements are inescapable. Decades ago, they were somewhat avoidable; all you had to do was turn off the television or put away the newspaper you were reading at the breakfast table. Nowadays, they permeate every facet of our lives: television, streaming, the internet, and movie theaters.
Are you sick of looking at them? We can take them away, as long as you pay extra for the privilege. Did you pay the money to get rid of them? Don't worry, the ads are now baked into the media you watch, as the camera casually zooms in on the can of Coke the protagonist is drinking, label out, of course. Your favorite influencer pauses mid-video to talk about human atrocities, then tells you about HelloFresh.
Instead of interrupting the narrative with advertisements, Buffet Infinity (2025) uses ads to tell the story of a small-town community invaded by an insidious, malevolent force. Westridge County is a typical microcosm of America, filled with used car lots, pawn shops, and a few locally owned restaurants. The local sandwich shop, owned by Jennifer Avery, is a favorite, as is her secret sandwich sauce (sourced from an old Italian recipe).
That is, until Buffet Infinity opens up nearby, located in a building next to a giant sinkhole that has mysteriously appeared. Buffet Infinity seems to grow exponentially, engulfing adjacent buildings and businesses, like a hungry black hole. A big corporation is depicted as an existential threat as it assimilates the little guy for its own gain.
The vast majority of the film is made up of a collection of '90s-era advertisements, in little fifteen-second spurts, that start out normal but over time start changing in unsettling ways. There are ads from Jen's Sandwich Shop, Buffet Infinity, a used car salesman who dresses up like a superhero, a pawn shop owner, a depressed man in an antidepressant commercial, a lawyer film, and a single mom who needs help with various problems. Each of these characters has their own parallel storyline throughout their ads, and as the situation escalates, they all deal with it in various ways.
Although the first half of the film is comedic, playing out like an extended version of the Mayostard/Mustardayonnaise sketch from Mr. Show, it quickly transforms into existential horror. Even as people from the town begin to disappear and townspeople take to the streets to protest, the ads keep coming, shedding the veneer of "everything is okay, please spend money" for desperate pleas for normalcy amid the chaos.
Ahmed, who owns the pawn shop, goes from trying to hawk used radios to selling supplies for people's underground bunkers, as his need to appease capitalism hasn't subsided, even with the looming apocalypse. Fairly recently, during the unrest in Minneapolis, I remember scrolling through videos of the protests, only to be served ads for gas masks and personal protection gear as the algorithm sensed a new avenue for marketing.
The horror of Buffet Infinity relies on breaking down the safe space of retro commercials, which are little slices of fake reality. It implies that the commercials have shifted from addressing consumers in general to speaking directly to you, the viewer. However, this concept isn't fantasy: IT ALREADY HAPPENED. The algorithm knows exactly what you are into, and all advertisements are tailored directly to you. Your phone is listening to what you say and showing you what it thinks you want to see. The existential horror is already here; the world ended, and we are in capitalist hell. Buffet Infinity is a documentary.
--Michelle Kisner