Toy Story of Terror

A cute Halloween movie to watch with the family. Especially if Jessie is your favorite character. Has a lesson on facing fears.

This is a really short film (I see it is labelled as a "TV movie," so probably aired as a 30 minute special) but it is a halloween classic for our family. Uniquely for a Halloween special, the children do not experience fear, but the sadness of losing their toys; the toys themselves, however, are picked off one by one, in the style of a classic "slasher" film like Halloween, but by a marauding lizard, facing the prospect of injury, dismemberment, and permanent separation from their friends as the hotel/pet owner auctions them off on e-bay. At least there's a happy ending!

The Toy Story films may now be over but this short film came out in the UK as part of Halloween programming. I didn't know what to expect from it – perhaps it was just a lazy TV spin off to generate income and keep the brand fresh, but actually it was a very enjoyable little short with all the main characters returning as well as some great new ones. The plot sees the gang checking into a motel where, as Mr Pricklepants points out, terrible things can happen. Sure enough the gang start getting picked off one at a time, confronting Jessie with her worst fears which she must overcome to save the gang.

With this plot the short has a knowing humor based on horror movies and it wears this well. It isn't all this though, the film also has a nice message about overcoming fear and does a good job to bring that out of Jessie very quickly for maximum use. The film is not as impacting, intelligent nor as funny as the films, but it is still good enough to be worth watching for what it does well. I laughed out loud a couple of times (pretty good for 20 minutes) and was amused consistently for the rest.

The characters are great. I liked that the originals all returned, although Hanks and Allen clearly did their work in one day in the studio. Cusack is good while Dalton, Shawn, Schaal, Rickles, and others are all good value. The addition of Carl Weathers not only pleased me as an Arrested Development reference, but he was also a very funny character; Pezcat was also good and produced the biggest laugh from me. Overall a very enjoyable seasonal short film with high production values and high quality all round.

I stumbled across this little "Toy Story of Terror" short practically without even knowing it existed. I had a bit of trepidation, however, as the ending of "Toy Story 3" was so incredible that I didn't want things to get "ruined" by tacked-on material that muddies the water.

Luckily, "Toy Story of Terror" doesn't try to do too much (a 22-minute runtime pretty much dictates that, I guess), instead providing a fun little adventure that lampoons scary movies in a fun fashion. All your favorite characters are on point, and it even introduces some new blood with Combat Carl (voiced by Carl Weathers), a GI Joe-like toy with a penchant for speaking in the third person.

Not too much to analyze here...just a lot of fun with your favorite characters from the film trilogy! I wouldn't pay too much for a 22-minute short, but if you do get a chance to see it I think you'll be cracking smiles throughout.

After missing it the previous two years, I finally got to watch this Pixar/Disney special. While the voices of Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz are back, it's mostly Joan Cusack's as Jessie that serves as the main character in this one as she has to deal with her claustrophobia when she gets involved in a rescue of one of those two I just mentioned. Quite amusing throughout especially when Timothy Dalton voices a character who knows all the horror movie conventions and Carl Weathers does someone based on a character he played in Predator. Maybe it could have used a bit more time to make the plot more enjoyable but overall, Toy Story of Terror did what it was meant to do, entertain.