Spooky Buddies (2011)

Directed by Robert Vince

Viewed on Netflix

 

Summary: A bunch of kids have to stop a warlock from sacrificing their dogs to an evil spirit dog. It is less fun than it sounds.

 

Spooktober continues, and it has engulfed the Dog Days of Summer and left something far more horrifying in its wake. An unholy fusion of dogs and horror has emerged to remind the world that no holiday is safe from dog movies. Which brings me to today’s movie, Spooky Buddies. Directed by Robert Vince, of Pup Star “fame,” and continuing the proud tradition of the “_____ Buddies” movies, this movie stars five puppies as they navigate through a wacky adventure that will surely end with all of them learning a valuable lesson. We’ve already seen a few very memorable dog films from Robert Vince, so expectations are quite high here, but does Spooky Buddies live up to the hype?

The Answer Is No.

Spooky Buddies is no Pup Star. Pup Star was a gloriously bizarre series that had everything going for it; an insane premise, a world that makes no sense, copious musical numbers, laughably bad special effects and hilariously inconsistent writing. But these things are all what made the Pup Star movies great, or at least made them fun to watch. You never knew what was going to happen next and that is what got me through the series. Spooky Buddies has the exact opposite problem. You always know what is going to happen next, so you never want to continue watching.

 

You Don’t Often See Disney Movies With Lynch Mobs.

Before I further describe why this movie sucks let’s get into what actually happens (which shouldn’t take too long). Our story begins way back in 1937, where a lynch mob is forming to storm a spooky mansion. Inside this mansion, a warlock named Warwick because coming up with names is hard, is trying to summon the Halloween Hound. Why is he trying to do this? To show the world how powerful he is, of course! Why does he want to do that? Uh…probably because he got picked on by all the flappers at school. 

It was tough being a goth in the roaring ‘20s.

In order to do this he gathered five puppies, all from one family of dogs, whose souls he will sacrifice to the Halloween Hound, a villainous dog spirit, in order to get the Hound out of his mirror dimension and into the real world.

 

 

Stealing Puppies? That’s A Death Sentence If I Ever Heard One.

So Warwick just starts sucking the souls out of these dogs and feeding them to the Hound. Which is kind of intense for a G rated movie but I guess kids are tough these days. The final puppy doesn’t really want his soul sucked out, come on puppy just give in to peer pressure and go with the group, so he runs while the lynch mob approaches Warwick’s home. This lynch mob has gathered here, headed by the local sheriff, to get back the puppies that Warwick stole. Now, I don’t know why Warwick would have to steal puppies, it is pretty easy to breed a bunch of dogs (especially when you have magic and the average litter size is 5 or 6 anyway) so I assume he did it just to be a dick. Warwick’s dickish nature comes back to bite him though as the town storms his mansion to get the puppies back, I assume to eat them because this is 1937 and the height of the Great Depression.

 

Magic Is Mildly Surprising I Guess.

Warwick chases the puppy downstairs and is met by the mob demanding he return the other dogs. I’m really impressed by this angry mob. Not only do they not care that he is flying around on his staff like it was a surfboard, but he also uncorks a magic potion and uses it to turn two of the mob members into frogs. I don’t care how much I wanted those dogs, once people started getting turned into frogs I would have started running and never looked back. Is magic just a thing here? I mean, they’re surprised but not THAT surprised, not “Oh no everything I believed in has suddenly been shattered” surprised, more like, “Oh no, someone left the window open when it was raining and now my floor is wet!” surprised.

Sorry, lynch mob guys, guess you’re just frogs now.

CURSES! FOILED BY MY PROCLIVITY FOR LOUNGING AROUND.

Warwick retreats to his sanctuary and drains the soul from the final puppy. He is about to complete the ritual when the sun rises, foiling his plans. This is such a common twist in these kinds of movies that it feels almost pointless to ask but, why would he wait until minutes before sunrise to finish the ritual? This is on Halloween night too, so he would have had like twelve hours to get this done. Another case of procrastination destroying a promising career. So the puppy’s soul is not eaten but he cannot return to his previous body, which is now stone. With Warwick’s plans foiled by the completely unpredictable sunrise, he quickly jumps into his mirror (because this powerful magic being had no other way to escape) fleeing from the angry mob.

 

This Sheriff Knows How To Handle A Weird Situation.

The mob, understandably, doesn’t really know what to make of this situation. Declaring the mansion now condemned, which a sheriff can just do I guess, the sheriff takes the staff and considers the case closed. He is then asked what exactly happened in the mansion and replies, “I don’t know, but hopefully it won’t happen again.” Jeez buddy, you were pretty gung-ho when it came to taking down a wizard, but now that he’s banished to the mirror dimension you lose all interest? Have some follow through, tear down the building or burn it or something, don’t just throw your hands in the air and say, “Nothing more we can do now! Better just leave all the magic crap in this house! Nothing bad could ever happen again, but if it does I’ll probably be long dead so it won’t be my problem!” And then he does just that! They all leave, and the story picks up in modern day when a bunch of students are being told the tale of what happened that fateful night.

 

I Really Don’t Want To Downplay The Fact That People Were Magically Turned to Frogs.

The tale teller informs the children that no one really know what happened that night. Which is true, if you discount the WARLOCK TURNING PEOPLE INTO FROGS bit which totally happened and everyone saw it. Feet away from these kids a group of puppies speaking to each other, with one of the puppies declaring Halloween to be his favorite “event” of the year.

HALLOWEEN IS A HOLIDAY NOT AN EVENT. HOW DARE YOU!?!

Sadly the dogs cannot actually talk. But they do talk to each other, so we can hear the dulcet tones of a golden retriever puppy speaking “street”. It may be too early to make this call, but this dog’s voice is WAY more grating than Scrappy’s. So there’s some kids and dogs there. Who are they, you may ask? The movie’s answer is, ‘Did you see the other Buddies movies? No? Then screw you, because we won’t tell you! You should be familiar with the Air Bud Cinematic Universe!’

 

The Dogs Unleash An Ancient Evil…BUT BILLY DIDN’T FINISH HIS HOMEWORK!

We get glimpses of personality from the dogs occasionally, but not too often because strangely enough the movie isn’t really ABOUT the dogs. They set the main plot in motion but don’t do very much else in the movie. I’m getting ahead of myself here though because the dogs do have some development, they make fun of the street talking dog, B-Dog, who then runs into the mansion to prove he isn’t scared of the Halloween Hound. Realizing that this is a terrible idea, the others follow and look around, while the disembodied soul of the puppy from 1937 looks on, apparently having been trapped in this house for 80 years. Through their stumbling about they accidentally release Warwick from his mirror prison to unleash a thousand years of darkness upon the mortal realm! But enough about that because one of the kids hasn’t done his history report, and it’s due on Monday! And he might miss Halloween and that is tonight!

What is happening in this picture is far less important than a history report.

What Day Is It???

It doesn’t matter that because they’re on a field trip that it means that today is Friday and even after having Halloween fun he would still have two solid days to work on this project. Maybe this kid’s weekend is just booked solid with dog adventures. Maybe this is a Sunday field trip? Do those exist anywhere? Aside from maybe church? So instead of focusing on dog adventures, this movie is really about this kid who forgot to do a history report, and his attempts to pick a topic. He settles on the mystery of the Halloween Hound thing, which really isn’t a mystery because a dozen eyewitnesses saw everything but okay. He talks to the police to borrow Warwick’s staff, for some reason. He is immediately given this staff. Because cops regularly hand out evidence to children and then don’t supervise their use of it, especially when the kid decides to use it as a prop in his wizard costume.

 

This is really helping with that history report, Billy.

Halloween Is Mildly Older Than Robert Vince Thinks It Is.

Free from his mirror prison, Warwick goes out into the night, seeking his staff and book of spells so that he may finish his ritual and summon the Halloween Hound, and with that bring about the rise of Spookiness and domination of the world! But first we have to have some wacky scenes where Warwick thinks kids going trick or treating are monsters! But…that doesn’t make any sense because Trick or Treating has been a thing since the 1920s, with some variants of it existing before then. Maybe the new costumes look more realistic than he’s used to? Was Warwick not from the town where he was living? Did he live off the grid somewhere and never interact with anyone? Really, it is just there to make Warwick goofy and non-threatening and also to pad out the film, because even though a lot of weird stuff happens, most of the movie just follows Warwick trying and failing to get his tools back and finish the ritual.

 

A Good Movie Is Approached And Then Narrowly Averted!

Shockingly enough, Warwick succeeds in retrieving his staff, then he menaces the children while looking for his book, only for it to be revealed that the book is held in the one location that Warwick can not enter, the church! Warwick’s magic cannot harm this holy site (except when it does later but don’t worry about that) and while there the children have it explained to them that the elderly caretaker of the book was an owner of one of the puppies who was taken by Warwick and he has been waiting ever since then to stop him once and for all. That’s a way more interesting story than the story we have been watching and I wish the movie was about this old man and not about these kids.

 

The Dogs Are Suddenly Very Important.

But those kids aren’t safe! Warwick has used another dog’s soul to finish the ritual, and now he needs his book to gain all the magical power he needs to use the Halloween Hound to take over the world! Also the dogs are in danger. Because the Halloween Hound dognapped them. They have contributed a lot to this movie. Warwick gives them an ultimatum, either give him his book or the dogs die.

Also his spells affect the church now for some reason?

These children, who are so enamored with their dogs with whom they never play or interact, decide that they have to give up the book in order to save the lives of their best friends, dooming the rest of the planet, and its dogs, in the process. But old Warwick can’t pull the wool over their eyes so easily! Once they meet up with Warwick they give him a book, which he immediately reads from and is wounded by. It is the Bible.

Blinded by the holy light. Or maybe actually momentarily blinded by light.

I Finally Found The Right Moment To Talk About VeggieTales.

Religion has popped up a few times in this movie, and I just cannot for the life of me figure out why. This is a Disney movie and those tend to be pretty safe and non-controversial, at least in recent years, so are they just trying to make a G rated version of a Satanic warlock horror movie? If that is the case it is…confusing. This is starting to come off less like the timeless battle between good and evil and more like that VeggieTales episode where the broccoli child learns he has nothing to fear from horror movies because God is more powerful than all monster movie villains combined. Sorry, I’ve wanted to discuss VeggieTales for a while now and I figured this would be the most understandable moment to…hey, wait a minute. When Warwick gets his book back, the cover of it has his magic symbol on it. But the inside is the Bible, so did the kids tear out the inside of a Bible and jam it into the real spellbook to trick Warwick? Because if so, that is both heroic AND sacrilegious, adding another layer to this movie’s strange relationship with religion.

Warwick proudly holding a defaced bible.

Subplots On Subplots On Subplots.

Going off on another tangent, there are many other things that happened in this movie but were just so uninteresting and bland that I completely skipped over them. Like, for example, every scene that a dog was in. These dogs are in the cover art for the movie but they are NEVER the real focus of the movie. They are an elevated subplot, at best, who wander around the movie talking to other dogs, like Zelda the fortune teller, or Pip the disembodied soul of the dog that was not sacrificed to the Halloween Hound, but these encounters are never funny or plot relevant or even on screen for very long. The vast majority of the movie is about the kids or Warwick magicking people into animals or a history report that never gets mentioned again. Way off topic though, back to Warwick’s biblically inspired pain.

 

Warwick Is Sent Back Into The Mirror, Rendering The Whole Movie Pointless!

Warwick is completely disabled by reading a sentence from The Lord’s Prayer, and one of the kids capitalizes on his pain, casting a spell from the true spell book to trap Warwick and the Halloween Hound in the mirror dimension forever. The children are apprehensive that Warwick may escape again but are reassured that this probably won’t happen again, I mean, what are the odds of it happening again? I would say pretty good considering that they just keep leaving all this magical crap around for the later generations to mess with! So everyone lives happily ever after and the buddies are ready for their next exciting adventure!

 

What A Step Down From Pup Star.

Or, judging by this movie, their next incredibly boring adventure. This movie isn’t even close to the worst movie I’ve seen for the website, but that’s the problem with it, it’s just bland. The Pup Star movies were completely insane and that made them fun to watch, it made them interesting and weird and out there and I did enjoy viewing them, even if they are technically and creatively speaking horrendous movies. Spooky Buddies suffers from the same problems as Pup Star: inconsistent writing, thin characters, lots of padding, tons of extraneous subplots. It has none of the same creative spark that Pup Star has, or the talents of Jed Rees who was a genuinely fun bright spot as the villainous Roland. Sure, Warwick is appropriately hammy and fun sometimes, but that’s not enough to keep a movie engaging. Bottom line is that Spooky Buddies is just not worth watching as a fun spooky Halloween dog movie. Or any kind of movie for that matter. I do not recommend it.

 

 

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