Sean Parker
Earlier this year, while writing reviews for Boston Underground Film Festival, the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) had a fascinating title that featured a collection of movie theater pre-movie and intermission programs, as well as some commercials. The film, Hey Folks! It’s the Intermission Time Mixtape, is a non-narrative film, meaning its presentation has no characters and tells no story. The nostalgic trailer ads are purely for the enjoyment of the viewer’s love for movie theaters. As I started Simon Glassman’s Buffet Infinity for Fantasia, I felt a little taken aback. Was I about to watch another program that was mostly odd, local television adverts?
Honestly, I had no idea what to expect watching Buffet Infinity, and as it started, I worried that my attention skills would fade if the presentation wasn’t bound by a narrative. However, Glassman’s film borrows a bit more from the WNUF Halloween Special, and the experimental prose of the film begins developing a story. Buffet Infinity may take audiences a few minutes to get used to, as it unleashes waves of commercials that look like they were filmed on a VCR in the ‘90s, but, after a few minutes, this network of small businesses, most of which reside in the same strip mall location, will slowly begin to reveal its story.
There’s Jenny’s Sandwich Shop, a tasty luncheon with a special sauce that keeps people coming back for more. A law office with a very dry lawyer doing his own commercials. A pawn shop where the employees write bad raps to sell products. An insurance ad shows us the peace of mind one woman has while her life falls apart around her. A car dealership with a superhero that fights a villain who loves high prices. A cultish church with a mysterious (and versatile) leader showing cryptic messages. A pet store, which, according to a news interruption, has lost several animals. And Buffet Infinity, a Las Vegas-style buffet that serves just about anything you can think of or desire.
Through each advertisement, the story emerges and, with time, each one of these businesses becomes more involved with one another. When Buffet Infinity begins to call out Jenny’s Sandwich Shop, pressing them to the point of legal retaliation, many of the businesses get in on the squabble. It’s a far cry from the sinkhole they are all discussing from the start, and the eventual discussion of the broadly put “extreme religious groups” that may be threatening the community, when really they’re just talking about the Westgate church and their enigmatic songwriter-sci-fi-author-leader. A horror story emerges in multiple ways as Buffet Infinity begins expanding, and no place in the community is safe from a cosmic-corporate takeover.
The fun of Glassman’s film is watching this whole thing play out over fifteen to thirty-second skits. Like an Adult Swim Infomercial or something out of the Tim and Eric catalog, Buffet Infinity begins as something like a Golden Corral, which to me is a place I’ve seen commercials for my entire life besides living nowhere near an actual location, and watching it morph into a McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts kind of corporate behemoth that appears on alternating corners. However, this new mega eatery does come with a bit of head-scratching forewarning, as there doesn’t seem to be any employees, and the patrons have started to go missing. Not to mention the restaurant is on the verge of consuming the entire strip mall.
While a movie like this is definitely an out-there experience, Buffet Infinity works because Glassman does a great job of adapting to each wave of commercials’ changes and taking the film into some ludicrously hilarious spaces. Meanwhile, he’s creating an easily identifiable metaphor for corporate entities impacting small towns. When large-scale chain stores and restaurants move in, they usually have an effect on the surrounding local businesses, sometimes forcing mom and pop shops out of business by severely undercutting their prices, offering lower wages, draining local economies by funneling money back to wherever their corporate offices are, creating excessive traffic, and more. But big business is no longer only interested in putting Main Street out of business; they’ve begun moving into the real estate game as well.
There isn’t a whole lot of technical achievement here. The film is mainly just people in front of green screens or walking back and forth around locations. The film does include AI and is up front about its use for satirical purposes. It isn’t completely obvious where the use of AI is in the movie, though it is apparent enough that I questioned its use when I saw it during the Buffet Infinity campaign.
Again, I think Glassman is adding to his big business mantra by targeting film studios in the subtext. The AI appears to be a very brief, intercut image during the Buffet Infinity advertisement defending a staff that no one has seen but definitely works there. The irony is that AI is just as hollow as the food from these big corporate fast food chains, and adds to the detriment of film by not hiring artists, quite like a Buffet Infinity establishment adds to the erosion of small towns. Before anyone tries to point out any hypocritical nature, this indie movie likely cost a few thousand dollars to make and uses the device as a way to poke fun at its defense, a far cry from a multi-million-dollar studio movie doing the same to save budget.
Buffet Infinity won’t be for everyone, specifically those who can’t adapt to its presentation through advertisements, but that shouldn’t dissuade anyone from watching the film. Glassman’s film is original and funny. If you were a fan of titles like WNUF Halloween Special, HeBGB TV, or any of Adult Swim’s programming, you’re going to really flip for Buffet Infinity, especially when it gets real meta in its third act to the point of unabashed lunacy and slides into Lovecraftian territory. Buffet Infinity is a bit of a strange duck in terms of films, but it’s a surprising and fun smorgasbord of over-consumption that will also catch you a little off guard.
Buffet Infinity held its World Premiere at the 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival on Monday, July 28. Check out the film’s page on the Fantasia website for more information.
