Thriller Night

Thriller Night
; Official film poster;
General information
Title	Thriller Night
Length	6 minutes
Release Date	September 13, 2011
Release on DVD	September 13, 2011 (Scared Shrekless); August 28, 2012 (Shrek's Spooky Tales)
Genre	Holiday / Halloween special
Production information
Directed by	Gary Trousdale
Produced by
Starring	Dean Edwards; Michael Gough; André Sogliuzzo; Holly Fields
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Thriller Night is a 6-minute Halloween-themed short film. It's a parody of Michael Jackson's music video Thriller, and was directed by Gary Trousdale. The short was released on September 13, 2011 in the Scared Shrekless DVD.

Dean Edwards and Sean Bishop reprised their roles as Donkey, Prince Charming, and King Harold. However, Mike Myers, Antonio Banderas, and Cameron Diaz did not return as Shrek, Puss in Boots, and Fiona as they were replaced by Michael Gough, Holly Fields, and André Sogliuzzo.

Synopsis[]

The special starts with Shrek (Michael Gough) bursting out of a movie theatre called The Mirror while screaming, followed by everyone else, including Princess Fiona (Holly Fields), Puss in Boots (André Sogliuzzo), and Donkey (Dean Edwards), who are all fine. Fiona checks if Shrek is all right and he replies that he actually wanted to see something scary like Mummies, a Man-Eating Plant, or at least a zombie because it is Halloween.

As Shrek leaves, Donkey and Puss try to cheer up Shrek by singing an upbeat Halloween tune, "Thriller." They start walking down the street (with Shrek annoyed at Donkey's singing), and everyone begins singing along- including the witches and rats. Puss (who plays the role of Vincent Price) tags behind and points to a cemetery where many figures rise from the dead- including Prince Charming (Sean Bishop), Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn), Fifi (Frank Welker {uncredited}), Fairy Godmother (Pinky Turzo), Lord Farquaad (Sean Bishop), The Headless Horseman, Captain Hook (Matt Mahaffey), Mongo (Conrad Vernon), King Harold (Sean Bishop) Steve and Ed, Cyclops, Thelonious, and Pied Piper (Jeremy Steig).

Everyone surrounds Shrek, Donkey, Fiona (who is getting ready for a Zombie karate fight), and Puss. Initially, the ogre is excited at the sight of the zombies, only to find the Pied Piper preparing to play his flute. Upset, Shrek tells Fiona that it's time to leave, but much to his horror, his wife has become a zombie. He is also terrified to see that Donkey and Puss also turned into zombies, leading to a big choreographed dance under the Piper's control. Shrek also starts dancing (against his will), with Donkey once again singing, this time with the zombies acting as his chorus.

At the end of the song, Shrek manages to break Pied Piper's flute, complaining that he's going to feel pain in the morning. As he turns around, he sees all of the zombies approaching him to kill him. Donkey then yodels as he and the others close in on Shrek, preparing to eat his brains. Shrek then wakes up screaming, and it is shown that he is in the movie theater before they left, and revealed that he was dreaming the whole time. He asks if "it is over"- to which Fiona tells him that he slept through the previews. Donkey then says he has 3 more hours of children, puppets, and nuns, leaving Shrek horrified.

Right before the short film ends, Puss appears from the black background laughing evilly (also similar to Vincent Price) and then hisses afterwards.

Voice cast[]

Michael Gough as Shrek
Dean Edwards as Donkey
André Sogliuzzo as Puss in Boots
Holly Fields as Fiona
Cody Cameron as Pinocchio / The Three Little Pigs
Conrad Vernon as Gingerbread Man / Mongo
Walt Dohrn as Rumpelstiltskin
Bobby Kimball as the Headless Horseman
Sean Bishop as Lord Farquaad / Prince Charming / Harold
Brentley Gore as Thelonius
Pinky Turzo as the Fairy Godmother
Jerome Clarke and Mark McCracken as Zombie Chorus
Matt Mahaffey as Captain Hook
Jeremy Steig as the Pied Piper
Frank Welker as Animals' vocal effects (uncredited)

Production[]

The short film was created after the production of the 2010 projects wrapped. It reused several assets from Shrek Forever After while making new renders of characters from the PDI films (i.e. Lord Farquaad, Fairy Godmother, Captain Hook, etc.).

Release[]

The short film was released on September 13, 2011, premiering on both the Scared Shrekless DVD release. In October of that year, a 3D version was released on the short-lived Nintendo Video Service on the Nintendo 3DS in October. It has seen subsequent digital rereleases on Netflix as part of several DreamWorks packages.

Reception[]

The short film received favorable reviews upon release.

Trivia[]

Tom Hester, a special effects artist who worked as a sculptor for Shrek and Shrek the Third, was a makeup artist for the original Thriller music video.
Donkey calls Shrek "Mr. King of Halloween," a callback to the self-proclaimed title in Scared Shrekless.
The Headless Horseman does the "talk to the hand" pose during one of the final shots of the zombie dance number.
There is evidence that Shrek was just dreaming, as the characters who actually did die in any of the previous installments were zombies. This would’ve been impossible due to the way some of them died.
- Lord Farquaad was eaten by Dragon in the first film and digested, so it would have been impossible to bury him. He was also once seen as a ghost in Shrek 4-D (also known as The Ghost of Lord Farquaad)
- The Fairy Godmother exploded in the second film, so it would have been impossible to bury her as well.
- Mongo would have crumpled up into crumbs and died.
- Other villains portrayed as zombies who never died were Rumpelstiltskin, Captain Hook, Cyclops, the Headless Horseman (although it can be assumed that he was already dead), the Pied Piper, and others.
Though Prince Charming was seemingly crushed in the third film (and even seen as a zombie), he is seen alive and well at the end of the short, indicating that he survived the hit of the tower.
- He sat between Thelonius and Cyclops.
Various fake posters used for Shrek the Third featuring Prince Charming can be seen at the theater.
The movie the characters were watching before and after the short was The Music Doth Sound, a parody of the classic musical, The Sound of Music.
- Besides parodying "The Lonely Goatherd" sequence in The Sound of Music, The yodeling song that plays in The Music Doth Sound is to the tune of "Bavarian Polka" by Fritz Schroeder, on the album "Yodeling Songs Of The Alps" by Legacy International.
Puss in Boots' line "Oh, my!" as a response to Donkey's "children, and puppets, and nuns", is a reference to the quote "Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!" from The Wizard of Oz.
This is the last official Shrek production with all of the characters together in the standard high quality animation.
- This might've been an intentional send-off/epilogue for the mainline franchise, given the appearance of almost all of the major characters.

Gallery[]

References[]

Michael Jackson's Thriller