Sing is Illumination's best franchise, and they finally did something I was begging them to do - lay off the Minions and let something else breathe for a change. They dropped a Halloween treat out of nowhere with Sing: Thriller, so you know I had to watch it. And Sing: Thriller is exactly what it says on the can: a cover of Michael Jackson's Thriller adapted to the Sing universe.
Don't get this confused with a Halloween special like Toy Story of Terror or It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. There is no developed plot or character arcs here. This is very much just a short music video at around 11 minutes total (shorter than Thriller, even). Buster Moon puts on a Halloween show at the New Moon Theater, after which he and his troupe (Ash, Johnny, Meena, Gunter, and Ms. Crawly... but no Rosita???) are invited to Clay Calloway's Halloween party. But something's afoul when there's an accident at the science lab that leaves glowing ooze all around town, an ooze that turns you into a brainless zombie with spiraling eyes if you touch it. Okay, Buster almost got realistically murdered multiple times in Sing 2, but the undead is a bridge too far? Then again, new models cost time and money, and Illumination isn't known for indulging in either. Anyways, the gang reach Clay's house only to find the ooze is already here, and Buster is helpless as all his friends break out into a choreographed dance. And it looks like he's next, because no mere mortal can resist the evil of the thriller... until he wakes up. It was all a dream - or was it!?
Visually, the short looks nice, with a spooky atmosphere and a filter that makes it look like an old horror movie while still being modern and colorful in appearance. The actual animation for the dance was adequate. I've seen so many takes of Thriller. There's better out there and this won't win any awards, but I still must imagine this is a dream come true for Garth Jennings to be officially able to do Thriller but with your characters swapped in. Unfortunately, the actual singing ran into the same issue I had with the cover of Prince's Let's Go Crazy - it sometimes slid into bad Kidz Bop territory, which is unusual for a franchise where this doesn't normally happen. The original voices return, which is great because these specials can sometimes end up with soundalikes (or soundnothingalikes), though they each only get a handful of lines. I imagine that wasn't really a tall order, because who's really going to decline being part of a Thriller cover?
Besides the singing and dancing, part of the fun is spotting the cameos. Most of the new characters from Sing 2 appear here in silent cameos (not including Porsha in the core group is a mistake in my opinion, also Jimmy Crystal is missing but that was to be expected), and there are also some missing faces popping back in from the first movie.
I think Sing: Thriller is okay for what it is, but I hope this is a new trend with Illumination. I want to see them dip their toes into their franchises outside of a movie every 4-5 years. Hopefully next time they do something with a little more plot so we can get more than a few lines from the characters.
