By Simon Thompson
Director/co-writer Simon Glassman’s Buffet Infinity is a kaleidoscopic, pointed horror-twinged satire about the nature of consumerism and advertising. Directly inspired by their compatriots Second City TV ( think Saturday Night Live if it was actually funny), the movie’s plot is communicated through cross-cutting various parody commercials together.
Set in the fictional town of Westridge County, Buffet Infinity tells the story of two local family fast food restaurants, competing to be number one. The rivalry gradually becomes more sinister as the plot unfolds, but through Glassman and co-writers Allison Bench and Elisia Synder’s script intelligently using the other commercials as a distraction from a missing persons case that develops around the second act, forcing you to read between the lines.
Through this narrative approach Glassman, Bench, and Snyder create a layer of intertextuality that is often associated as being a literary technique rather than a cinematic one. Like Thomas Pynchon, William Burroughs, Steve Erickson, and Mark Z.Danielewski the writing trio behind Buffet Infinity piece together smaller plots like a jigsaw puzzle, to form a richer grand narrative that rewards you for paying attention to the minor details.
Comedically Buffet Infinity, takes its cues not only from Second City TV, but there is also a lot of overlap with much more contemporary dark surreal comedy and anti-humour shows such as Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place,Tom Goes To The Mayor, Tim And Eric, Nathan For You, I Think You Should Leave, Too Many Cooks, and Smiling Friends. What Buffet Infinity has in common with all of these shows is that it has an intrinsic knowledge of what it’s mocking to begin with, but isn’t afraid to tonally shift.
Like Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place especially, the cinematography of Buffet Infinity is made to look as much like a cheap mid 90s-00s local tv commercial as possible, intentionally basking in the exact opposite of something slick and glossy. The cutting is rapid, but given that Glassman wants you to feel that you’re flicking through a series of tv channels late at night, the speed of the editing is completely appropriate.
If you’re into more conventional narratives, then Buffet Infinity isn’t going to be the movie for you, however, that is both defiantly experimental and very funny at the same time. The highest compliment I could give Buffet Infinity is that I haven’t seen too many recent movies which play around with narrative structure in quite the way that this one does and in an industry which is built around chasing trends and trying to be like everything else, movies like Buffet Infinity need to be cherished.
Buffet Infinity screened as part of Overlook Film Festival 2026.
Bloody Flicks 