Buffet Infinity

Buffet Infinity

A hypnotic comedy horror made from hundreds of terrible commercials

In the small Canadian town of Westridge, a new restaurant called Buffet Infinity opens its doors and quickly threatens the local businesses. When a mysterious sinkhole appears and people begin to disappear, a very real horror slowly emerges from the commercials broadcast on the local TV station. “Buffet Infinity” tells its story through hundreds of commercials that, like pieces of a monstrous puzzle, gradually reveal the full picture.

In the small Canadian town of Westridge, a new all-you-can-eat restaurant arrives and quickly sets its sights on the entire local business community. Buffet Infinity is bad news for Jenny, the owner of a beloved sandwich shop, but what starts as a petty rivalry soon turns sinister: a mysterious sinkhole appears, people begin disappearing, and the restaurant starts swallowing up local businesses. The small-town entrepreneurs fight back, but they are no match for something far more terrifying than a corporate chain. Meanwhile, the local TV station keeps churning out commercials, news reports and programs, from which a very different kind of horror slowly emerges.

“Buffet Infinity” is an offbeat, hypnotic comedy horror told entirely through a barrage of cheap-looking TV commercials and segments inspired by the local television of the 1980s and ’90s. Its cast includes a local lawyer with a spectacular comb-over and a good-natured pawn shop owner desperately trying to stay afloat as the world around him falls apart. Each commercial adds another piece to an increasingly unsettling puzzle, while offering a nostalgic trip back to an era when capitalism exploded like a supernova and every small-time business wanted its moment in the spotlight. Here, the audience has to piece the story together for themselves, and when the final pieces fall into place, the result is delightfully jaw-dropping. Beneath its absurd surface, “Buffet Infinity” is a sharp satire of consumerism and the hunger for limitless expansion, as well as a wonderfully warped reminder that television can be a genuine source of nightmares.

The film is the work of Simon Glassman, a Canadian comedian and filmmaker who expanded “Buffet Infinity” from a 30-second YouTube sketch. Together with Allison Bench and Elisia Snyder, he has created a film in which form is inseparable from the story, with hundreds of commercials gradually coming together to form one of the most inventive narratives in contemporary independent cinema. “Buffet Infinity” marks Glassman’s feature debut.