“We scare because we care.”
Almost exactly nineteen years ago, Disney and Pixar released the wildly popular Monsters, Inc. The film starred John Goodman and Billy Crystal as James P. “Sulley” Sullivan and Mike Wazowski, respectively. In the film, monsters harness the screams of children to power their city, Monstropolis. To do this, the monsters enter children’s bedrooms at night via their closet doors and scare them. In a twist, however, the monsters are actually scared of the children because the touch of a child is considered to be toxic. When Sulley accidentally lets a young girl enter the monster world, chaos ensues and a wicked plan to kidnap children is uncovered.
Sulley and his co-worker, Mike, team up to get the young girl, nicknamed “Boo,” back home and battle the wicked Randall (Steve Buscemi), who is intent on capturing children and using their screams forever since it is becoming more difficult to scare children in modern times. Do Mike and Sulley save Boo? What truths do they reveal while attempting to save her? You’ll have to watch Monsters, Inc. to find out!
The film features a wonderful cast that includes Jennifer Tilly, James Coburn, Frank Oz, Bonnie Hunt, and John Ratzenberger. There are a number of laugh out loud moments for both children and adults as well. It’s a great twist on being afraid of the monsters in your closet and probably eased the troubled minds of a few youngsters as well.
Goodman and Crystal work well together in this film. Crystal’s frantic voice makes Mike one of the funniest characters in the movie. Goodman’s “aw, shucks” delivery makes Sulley the most lovable character in the film. Steve Buscemi has always done an awesome job as sleezy, deceptive characters, and because of this, Randall is the perfect foil to Mike and Sulley.
One of the standout characters in the film is Roz (Bob Peterson), a cranky Scare Floor worker who seems to really, really hate her job. I won’t spoil the surprise twist to her character revealed in the film, but it’s wonderful.
The movie was a real beast at the box office, earning the top spot for two weeks straight until finally getting knocked into second place by the first Harry Potter film. It has remained a consistent performer on home media and streaming services.
While it isn’t necessarily a scary film, it does have a few spooky moments. When Mike goes into a rage, it can definitely scare little ones, and the plot point involving kidnapping children in order to capture their screams is scary all on its own. Overall, though, the film can be enjoyed by all ages. It’s easily in my top ten for Pixar films and falls somewhere in my top thirty for Disney films. It’s fun to watch even as an adult.
This is my final Thirty-One Days O’Horror post for 2020. The year has been pretty scary itself, but I do appreciate any and all of you that have visited my blog, liked my posts, or left comments. I didn’t get to post about all of the things that I hoped to such as David J. Skal’s book, Hollywood Gothic (I’ll catch that in November) due to the fact that I’ve been working twelve hour days, seven days a week ever since Hurricane Laura hit, but I am glad that I was able to post on every day of October. I’m going to dial it back for the rest of the year, but I hope to throw in a few more spooky posts before 2020 is over.
As always, thanks for reading my post. I hope that you enjoyed this year’s Thirty-One Days O’Horror topic, Disney Horror, and all of the other Halloween goodies that I threw in throughout the month. Let me know which topics you’d like me to cover next year in the comments section and feel free to tell me which posts were your favorite as well.