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'Toy Story Of Terror!' Is A Hauntingly Great Halloween Special

"Toy Story Of Terror" is proudly being proclaimed as Pixar's first television special and instead of Christmas, the designated holiday is Halloween.

The set-up for "Toy Story Of Terror" is fairly simple: Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Mr. Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton), Rex (Wallace Shawn), Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles) and Trixie (Kristen Schaal) are in the trunk of Bonnie's mom's car, watching an old-fashioned horror movie. The car gets a flat tire and Bonnie and her mom decide to spend the night at a seedy motel. The toys get out to explore and get picked off one… by one…

Unlike the wonderful "Treehouse of Horror" episodes of "The Simpsons" (or the "Shrek" Halloween special), "Toy Story Of Terror" doesn't follow the format of a horror anthology. Instead, it's a single, 30-minute narrative.

The special was written and directed by Angus MacLane, a longtime Pixar employee who directed the "Small Fry" short film (there's even a weird "Small Fry" visual reference, with Bonnie wearing a DJ Blu-jay T-shirt at the end of the short). MacLane is intimately familiar with these characters, and there's an effortlessness to the storytelling that is simply wonderful. The special toggles between comedy and horror with ease, mostly facilitated by Mr. Pricklepants, the thespian hedgehog, who points out the tropes of the genre as the characters are going through them. "Psycho," "Vacancy," "Hostel," "Alien," "Motel Hell," and countless other horror movies are casually referenced, but the nods never slow down the narrative.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayli...ecial-20131008