There are five Toy Story movies. There is a Lightyear. There are shorts, a spin-off series, and enough theme park rides to fill a weekend. And tucked in among all of it is one of the best things the franchise ever made: a twenty-two minute Halloween special that a lot of fans have never seen.
It is called Toy Story of Terror, and it is exactly what it sounds like.
A Toy Story Slasher, Sort Of
Toy Story of Terror premiered on ABC on October 16, 2013. It picks up after Toy Story 3, with Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and the gang now living with Bonnie.
The setup is pure horror movie. Bonnie and her mom are on a road trip when they get a flat tire, and they pull into a roadside motel for the night. The toys sneak out to explore. And then, one by one, they start disappearing.
The culprit turns out to be the motel manager, Ron, voiced by Stephen Tobolowsky. He has trained his pet iguana, Mr. Jones, to snatch toys from guests so he can sell them online. The toys are not being murdered. They are being stolen. But to a toy, that is close enough.
It is Jessie who has to save everyone, and that is where the special gets smart.
Jessie’s Worst Nightmare
If you remember Toy Story 2, you remember Jessie’s backstory. She was seemingly abandoned by her owner, Emily, and left in a donation box. She spent years locked away in storage. The thing that scares her most is not a monster. It is being trapped in a box again.
Toy Story of Terror makes that fear the whole story. To rescue her friends, Jessie has to face it head on.
Director Angus MacLane told D23 the special is “emotionally about Jessie’s journey and revisiting her unfinished fears.” It is Jessie’s story from start to finish, and Joan Cusack makes the most of it.
The Horror Movie Easter Eggs
MacLane clearly loves horror, and the special is packed with nods to the genre. According to D23, there are references to The Shining, Predator, and The Silence of the Lambs. The motel’s room key is a nod to the Overlook Hotel, and there is a line borrowed from Night of the Living Dead.
Then there is Mr. Pricklepants, the hedgehog voiced by Timothy Dalton, who spends much of the special narrating exactly which horror movie rule the toys are about to break. It is a running joke that works even if you have never seen a slasher.
The Buried Detail: Combat Carl
Here is the part even devoted fans tend to miss.
Inside the motel, Jessie meets Combat Carl, a gung-ho action figure voiced by the late Carl Weathers. Carl is not a new character. A Combat Carl appears in the very first Toy Story, back in 1995. He is one of the toys Sid blows up in the backyard.
Toy Story of Terror gives the brand a second chance, and turns him into one of the most memorable side characters in the franchise. He is another of the motel’s captive toys, and his relentless, never-give-up attitude is what pushes Jessie to fight back.
Why It Works So Well
MacLane started out at Pixar as an animator and later directed Lightyear. He told D23 that one of his favorite things about the TV format was something movies never allow: commercial breaks. Ad breaks meant he could end each act on a down note, with the audience left hanging.
That structure gives the special the rhythm of an old anthology horror show. Every act ends with someone missing and the music swelling. For a kids’ special, it is genuinely tense.
It worked for critics, too. Toy Story of Terror holds a ninety four percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and reviewers praised it as feature-quality Pixar squeezed into half an hour of TV. It also kicked off a short run of Toy Story TV specials, followed a year later by the Christmas-themed Toy Story That Time Forgot.
Where To Watch
Toy Story of Terror has been streaming on Disney+ since 2020, which means it is easy to add to the Halloween rotation. It runs about as long as a sitcom episode, it works for little kids and adults, and it might be the best twenty-two minutes Pixar has ever made for television.
If you have watched all five Toy Story movies and never seen this one, you have a perfect October night waiting for you.
