13 FOR HALLOWEEN #5: Toy Story of Terror

Woody (Tom Hanks) and the gang are passing the time during a cross-country drive. The trunk of a car can be a dark and claustrophobic place so they distract themselves by watching a horror movie on a laptop. Which is kind of like an ophidiophobe chilling out with ‘Snakes on a Plane’. And it doesn’t help that Mr Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton) – who really ought to be called Mr Smartypants – keeps talking over the film, giving a running commentary on horror movie tropes and how the narrative plays out. When a flat tyre strands them at a dreary and, more to the point, isolated motel, Mr Pricklepants is in his element, confidently predicting that before too much longer the group will be split up and “picked off one by one”.

Confidently and accurately.

‘Toy Story of Terror’ may only be a short, but it’s as rich in ideas, inventiveness and entertainment as any of its feature-length brethren. While presenting a mildly scary tale for kids, the litany of horror genre lore and specific movie references that it throws out ensure its no less entertaining for adults. Indeed, the unforced panache with which its homages are staged – be it a shower curtain placed centrally in a tense cat-and-mouse scene or Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) declaring “I’ll be right back” – is a delight. It even teases the knowing adult audience with the possibility of Jessie the Cowgirl (Joan Cusack) as final girl.

Speaking of whom, the film neatly keys into its predecessors, relying on Jessie’s backstory from ‘Toy Story 2’ to generate tension: her claustrophobia when she’s accidentally locked in a tool box in an early scene foreshadows her requirement to be sealed in a box during the denouement when she has to … Ah, but that would be telling. Moreover, the solidarity of the toys holding hands as they slide inexorably towards the furnace at the end of ‘Toy Story 3’ is subverted as the group are split up during the genuinely tense middle section. Likewise, a sequence of captivity and attempted escape also echoes that instalment.

How scary is it? Well, there’s nothing that reaches the clammy heights of the furnace set-piece, or even the evil playhouse that is Sid’s bedroom in ‘Toy Story’. Nor is there anything as squirmily tense as the airport sequence in ‘Toy Story 2’. But as a comedy-horror, it works brilliantly. It works because, like the absolute best of Pixar, it’s been made with care and wit and attention to detail. Director Angus MacLane, who co-wrote it with Pixar stalwart Andrew Stanton, understand the horror genre; they know when to spoof and when to scare.

Am I making it sound like ‘Toy Story Does Scream’? Then so be it, but with the caveat that ‘Toy Story of Terror’ is funnier, cleverer and more sophisticated than ‘Scream’ – and, at 21 minutes, mercifully shorter.

WALL-E

A week ago, as we exited 'WALL-E', Paula asked me, "Would you say that's Pixar's best yet?"

Floating rather than walking out of the cinema, suffused with a warm happy feeling, unhesitatingly my reply was, "Yes."

Then I spent a few days wondering if it really was. Did it quite match the colourful vibrancy of 'Cars'? Or the unalloyed visual (and damn near olfactory) perfection of 'Ratatouille'. Wasn't it, in fact, a film of two halves, the first - set on a garbage-ridden future vision of Earth - a joyous, imaginative, dialogue-free study of one robot's day-to-day life, his yearning for companionship and the sudden arrival of EVE, a sleek, balletic female robot; the second - set aboard a huge starliner whose entire human inhabitants have devolved into grotesque obesity - a frenetic chase story substituting manic set-pieces for the erstwhile poignancy? Were a couple of nifty musical cues homaging '2001: A Space Odyssey' any match for the welter of in-jokes in 'The Incredibles'?

There was only one thing for it.

We went to see it again.

And, yes, now I'm sure: 'WALL-E' is, by a short head, Pixar's best yet.

Here, at random, are six reasons why:

1) Boiled down to its simplest narrative arc, 'WALL-E' is about a robot, left alone on a wasted planet for 700 years with just a VHS tape of 'Hello, Dolly' for company, who finally breaks away from his routine, braves the stars and involves himself in a quest hitherto beyond anything in his understanding or experience, simply because he wants to do no more than hold EVE's hand. It's perhaps the most chaste and wonderfully innocent love story in all of cinema.

2) It tells so much - and implies so much more - through visuals alone. It's pure cinema.

3) It introduces themes of corporationism, environmental irresponsibility, dependency on technology (like all the best sci-fi, it holds up a mirror to contemporary concerns) without seeming preachy, political or heavy-handed. It's a slap in the face to contemporary America that still manages to be supremely entertaining and utterly heartwarming.

4) WALL-E himself has to be the cutest animated hero of all time. God, that li'l robot is adorable! I also love the fact that he's not a hero. Things happen to him. Most of the time, he's confused or scared when events snowball. In other words, he acts like most people would act when caught up in something beyond their control.

5) EVE is a fun and fiesty heroine. Even though she looks like a cross between an egg and an iPod, she's still pretty swish. (I'm starting to doubt my own sanity having just typed that sentence.)

6) For every moment that makes you laugh - WALL-E pursued by a convoy of runaway shopping trolleys, the manic cleaning robot on the starship - there's one that brings a lump to the throat - WALL-E rocking himself to sleep, WALL-E trying to recreate a romantic idyll with EVE after she shuts down - and director Andrew Stanton holds the humorous and the heartfelt in perfect equilibrium.

There are essays to be written about 'WALL-E' by future film scholars, perhaps book-length studies. I've bashed out about 700 words and barely scratched the surface. But maybe all that needs to be written about 'WALL-E' can be said in ten words:

It's Pixar at the top of their game. See it.