Join The Club
Anytime a new Toy Story movie hits theaters, several assumptions can be made. 1. It’ll be a beloved and emotionally fraught journey for most of the audience. 2. It’ll make a ton of money at the box office. And 3. It’ll feature situations and details only a shade away from being existential nightmares. Toy Story 5 does not disappoint there, and Team Pixar kept my horror movie-loving brain contemplating potentially terrying scenarios for the characters throughout.
The magical nature of Toy Story is the gift that keeps on giving by way of “What if…?” scenarios, and writer/director Andrew Stanton’s sequel features some classic “toys playing dead” moments for Jessie, Buzz & Co., while also introducing Conan O’ Brien’s A+ new character Smarty Pants and Greta Lee’s villainesque tech Lily Pad. Let's get to it, but be warned there are SPOILERS AHEAD!
Sticky Slap Hand Seemingly Becomes One With Smarty Pants
I am quite possibly more freaked out by Sticky Slap Hand than by most horror movie monsters. This is, to my understanding, a standalone toy able to communicate non-verbally and independently travel around. Yet soon after these playthings are introduced, the Hand wraps its ropey length around Smarty Pants' handle and essentially becomes the potty trainer's new limb.
Nobody comes out and says, "There's a psychic link between those two," but so much of what the Hand does is in Smarty Pants' favor, and shouldn't be such instinctive behavior for a completely separate toy. What actually ARE you, Sticky Slap Hand?!?
That Dormant Rubik's Cube In Blaze's House
If "living" toys being locked away in attic trunks for decades makes up one side of the Toy Story nightmare spectrum, the other side would probably be seeing toys in the wild that never gain consciousness without humans around. Because what happened there?
Case in point: When Jessie is going through Blaze's house, she passes by what is clearly a Rubik's Cube. But instead of jumping up with some twisty and colorful animation, the Cube just exists as scenery, and doesn't appear to share in other toys' vitality. What. Happened. There?
All Those Buzz Lightyears Doing Anything Synchronized, But Especially The Drone Stuff
Watching 50 identical Buzz Lightyears doing differing things isn't so bothersome, but seeing them working in tandem is definitely unnerving, such as that whole squad rising up out of the water Apocalypse Now-style. However, the real horror comes amidst the film's climax, when the upgraded astronaut toys show off their drone propellors to fly Jessie and the core crew through the city far more quickly and safely (in theory) than walking.
However, that rescuse happens above busy streets with cars whipping through, and there's no possible way the toys travel from Points A to B without drivers seeing all the lit-up drones carrying toy-shaped cargo. To humans, I'd think they'd appear to be a UFOs/UAPs, and someone would use a phone to record video of it all. Imagine the Buzzes all going slack and falling into the traffic below...The horror!
The Pizza Planet Driver Passing By All The Toys
Before the drones, when Jessie is leading the pack along the side of a road, everyone goes limp when a car (Toy Story 5's Pizza Planet reference) is approaching. But then before the vehicle is even out of the frame, everyone jumps back up and starts advancing anew.
A paranoid conspiracy horror movie could kick off right there. If I'd ever see that many toys just jumbled on the side of the road while driving, I'd 100% slow down and have my eyes glued to my car mirrors, wondering what in the world could have happened. Because they jump up so quickly, a mirror glance would make that break in reality quite visible for the driver. Maybe he drove off the road in shock, never to be seen again.
The Unearthed Lunchbox Under The Tree
The most emotional moment in Toy Story 5 for yours truly and others was Jessie learning she was the namesake for her former owner's daughter. Which she discovered in the lunchbox time capsule buried at the base of the tire swing tree. Now imagine being Blaze's rational human mother going out there and discovering that lunchbox and its connection to the toy that "randomly" showed up at their house.
I think Blaze's mom would believe her daughter saying she wasn't responsible. So if I'm Mrs. Manoukian, I'm thinking it's either someone from the former owner's family secretly trespassing, or it's ghosts. No other options, and both of those suck.
Lily Pad Is Basically M3GAN With Worse Dance Moves
This requires the smallest leap to horror, since Lily Pad is a monster wrapped in bright plastic, with her Internet connection being a catalyst for chaos. Sure, she comes around in the end, but what if this was a M3GAN-esque story? Lily would have eliminated those cruddy girls who bullied Bonnie, no question.
It's wild to consider what would happen if the cops had to access Lily Pad's data in relation to a murder (or whatever crime), and they were faced with a statistical anomaly that could only be explained by screaming "The toys are sentient!" while running out of the police station.
Thanks for reading along! Don't forget to lock up all your toys when you go to bed tonight, and remember to check for scratches on the inside of the closet door in the morning.
