Good concept, poorly executed.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I WAS going to be nice to this movie, since it just looked like your typical talking dog movie, and it didn't look all THAT stupid at first. But then it just goes right up the deep end into total GARBAGE. The villain is an idiot, the hound's means and methods don't make any sense, the acting is terrible, the decent animation is sadly overlooked, the story is full of cliches and contrivances, and seriously, the Halloween hound is defeated by a FART!?I don't care if this is a direct-to-DVD talking dog movie, I expected BETTER from you, DISNEY. I expected a LOT better.

I showed this movie last October as part of a Family Movie Night and 72 people came to watch it. No one complained about any religious overtones and believe me they would have gone to my director if they did. I found this movie enjoyable for adults and children and one of the best buddies movie they have made. It was perfect for the season. As a matter a fact I will be showing it again this month as there were no other recent family Halloween movies to show my audience. This movie had my audience laughing and enjoying themselves. Don't read too much into a movie, just sit back and have fun like my viewers do. The Buddie movies are harmless, family fun and I always draw at least 30 people to this event. I wish there were more harmless movies made to show families. I was surprised to see that this movie had only a 4.6 rating on IMDb, it should at least be a 7.

Being a huge fan of the Buddies movies, I was really excited about this movie when I heard it was coming out. The gap between this one and "Santa Buddies" was nearly two years. ("The Search for Santa Paws" doesn't count.) For a while, this movie has been rumored, but I've found no info of it either on IMDb, Wikipedia, or even the official Buddies website. But now it's here. But enough about that, let's move on to the review...Sadly, I'd have to say that this movie was not worth the wait. Compared to it's predecessors, "Spooky Buddies" was a huge letdown. Nobody I recognized worked on the movie (with the exception of Michael Bolton, who was the production manager for some reason), the story is unoriginal, the characters are uninspiring, the Buddies are not shown very much despite the fact that they are the titular characters, the CG effects badly rip off "Casper", and there's a lot of logic in the movie that makes so little sense that I'm sure the Nostalgia Critic will have a fit about! I never thought I'd say this, but this was easily the worst of the Buddies movies. At first I thought Disney would never disappoint me with this franchise. (I'm still not sure why so many people hate these movies.) "Space Buddies" did come pretty close, but "Spooky Buddies takes the cake. On a positive note, "Treasure Buddies" was a considerable improvement. I'll just hope that Disney will continue to make these Buddies movies and make them the way they should be made.

I do not recommend this movie for children who have not been desensitized to evil witchcraft. References to evil spirits, the underworld, and black magic abound. The Halloween Hound has yellow glowing eyes and *minor spoiler* breathes out black smoke that turns animals to stone. He also "eats" the puppies' "souls". This is necessary to *spoiler* "open a porthole" that will unleash evil spirits into our world and give the evil warlock Warwick (Harland Williams) control of the world.There are, interestingly enough, two references to Christianity in the film. *Spoilers* One where the people are safe from evil in "the House of God" (a church), and another where reading words from the Bible thwarts evil. As a Christian, these references did not at all make up for the unnecessary exposure to evil and witchcraft. In my opinion, children DO NOT need this!We are fans of the "Buddies" movies, but NOT this one. My 8 and 10 year old hated this movie. They were both awake most of the night because of it. If you do not like the first 5 minutes of this movie, turn it off! It doesn't get any better.