Scared Shrekless
Tags: storytelling

Plot synopsis:
It is Halloween night, and Shrek's family is celebrating by scaring trick-or-treaters. Inside their house, Donkey, Puss, Pinocchio, the Three Little Pigs, Big Bad Wolf, and Gingy fail to scare the ogres, and Shrek claims that nothing can scare an ogre because ogres are "the kings of Halloween". To prove him wrong, Donkey proposes a challenge to see who can tell the scariest story, but Shrek amps it up by choosing to hold their contest in Lord Farquaad's abandoned castle Duloc.
=== The Bride of Gingy ===
Gingy starts first with a story about his girlfriend dumping him and asking the Muffin Man for a new girlfriend, made with loads of sugar, thus giving her the name "Sugar" as revealed in the credits. Gingy becomes happy with her but ends up becoming freaked out of all her love for him. After running away and pushing her in a big container of batter, he finally becomes free of her, unaware that the batter Sugar was dropped in ended up creating thousands of zombie clones of herself, surrounding Gingy and eating him. The Three Little Pigs get scared and run away with Big Bad Wolf who claims they are his ride. Shrek comments on the falsehood of Gingy's "true" story, saying that he cannot be there if he was eaten, and he runs off as well.
=== Boots Motel ===
Next, Donkey and Puss in Boots tell a story about them taking shelter from a thunderstorm at the Boots Motel (a parody of the Bates Motel from Psycho). Their story starts off well, but they end up arguing over how the story should be told, and then resort to just making each other look bad. Donkey gets Pinocchio to spray Puss with water, making him run away.
=== The Shreksorcist ===
At last, Shrek tells the final story about his experience babysitting Pinocchio, who appeared crazed and possessed. After repeatedly beating up Shrek, Pinocchio leapt from the window, despite Shrek's attempts to catch him. When Pinocchio lands on the streets, a talking cricket (Jiminy Cricket) pops out of Pinocchio's head, claiming to be his conscience and the voice in his head that made him go crazy. Pinocchio squashes the cricket under his foot.
Pinocchio denies that the story is true, but when Shrek shows him a normal cricket, he screams and runs out. Now alone, Donkey and Shrek hear the wind moving about, and a walking suit of armour calling Donkey's name. It appears to be the ghost of Farquaad, who has come to take revenge. Scared out of his wits, Donkey admits defeat and runs away. Fiona reveals it was her and the babies who planned the ghost act and then they, along with Shrek, celebrate by egging the Seven Dwarfs.
=== Scary stories ===
The Bride of Gingy told by Gingy (a spoof of Bride of Frankenstein)
Boots Motel told by Donkey and Puss in Boots (a spoof of Bates Motel)
The Shreksorcist told by Shrek (a spoof of The Exorcist)

Review: Brilliant.
Scared Shrekless is a brilliant Halloween special, of the two Dreamworks specials(the other being the Monsters vs Aliens one) this is the better one of the two.
Gorgeously animated(the backgrounds are always colourful yet wonderfully atmospheric at times too) with creepy music, hilarious, witty writing, inspired storytelling, all our favourite characters at the top of their game(especially Puss and Gingerbread) and great voice acting(even with the replacement of Eddie Murphy for Donkey's voice).
The special is made up of three parodies, the best being the parody of Bride of Frankenstein with Gingerbread, hysterically funny, full of creepy atmosphere and often cute.
Shrek's Exorcist parody was also amusing and effective in its creepiness, if not quite as terrifying as the real thing(understandably).
Puss and Donkey's Psycho parody was good, it was funny with great voice work and storytelling, only let down by a couple of Donkey's comic interruptions, occasionally coming across as forced.
Overall though, Scared Shrekless is brilliant, if you love the first two films(I do) or love horror(the more I see the more I highly appreciate it) you will love it.
9/10 Bethany Cox. Though well-made, you wonder how much longer they can exploit the franchise....
I marvel at how much Dreamworks has exploited their Shrek franchise.
I mean, how many movies, specials and short films can they make until enough is enough?
While I clearly am worried about the future of the series, I must admit that despite everything, "Scared Shrekless" clearly has gorgeous CGI.
So, despite being a short and having a substitute voice for Fiona, it is still amazingly nice to look at and features a lot of what made the other films enjoyable.The episode is set at Halloween.
Many of the old storybook characters come to Shrek's house to celebrate and tell scary stories.
The Gingerbread Man tells a story about his mate--how he and a crazed baker made what SEEMED like the perfect partner.
But, things go awry and the story is frighteningly cute.
Then, Puss tells a story that is clearly inspired by "Psycho".
But, again and again, Donkey keeps interrupting the story--making a mess of it and forcing Puss to tell what REALLY happened.
Finally, Shrek tells a story he says is a cute version of "The Exorcist".All in all, I was surprised that I enjoyed this film as much as I did.
All three stories were very enjoyable and worth seeing...surprise!
Nice, light viewing for the entire family..
ErShrekend.
Surprisingly hilarious Halloween special with the first episode, a brilliant Bride of Frankenstein parody, particularly outstanding.
After the average Christmas special the writers really upped the ante and came up with some gruesomely funny ideas and jokes, using the by now all too well-known Shrek characters remarkably well.The result's an entertaining half-hour roller-coaster with only the middle section lagging.Since the first two installments, Shrek has never been this funny.
Aaaargh!!!7 out of 10 haunted castles.
Shrek Halloween Special.
On Halloween, Shrek and several fairy tale characters go to the castle of Lord Farquaad, where they compete in telling scary stories.
The last one remaining in the castle wins.
This twenty-minute cartoon consists of three stories done as a homage to cult horrors.
Gingerbread's story is inspired by the film "Bride of Frankenstein", Puss and Donkey squabble in their usual way through a parody of Hitchcock's "Psycho", and Shrek wins the night with scenes from the movie "The Exorcist" applied to Pinocchio.
Imaginative, witty and technically well done.
I enjoyed it very much.8/10.
Love it, but PLEASE make it in Bluray!!!!.
Scared Shrekless was the perfect Halloween short movie for those of us who are faithful Shrek fans.
It was well written and contains all of my Shrek favorites.
It is a compilation of 3 Halloween stories from each characters point of view.
The parts with the 3 Little Pigs and with the Gingerbread Man are especially funny.
Great spooky little film.
A must see for fall.
The colors and animation quality in the film are great as well.
It is better on TV in HD.
The kids and myself love Scared Shrekless and Monsters vs Aliens Mutant Pumkins, but won't be buying the DVD.
We are waiting for them to make them on Bluray.
Most movie buffs these days have hi def TV's and need hi def discs..
Scary and fun at the same time.
This short animation is about Shrek and his friends having a competition to see who can tell the scariest story."Scared Shrekless" is a fun animation.
It is so colourful and fun.
It is not easy to make a scary enough but not too scary animation for kids.
Everything about "Scared Shrekless" is so adorable.
The characters are cute, and the haunted house is spooky in a fun way.
The gingerbread man sub-story is scary and fun at the same time.
It sounds crazy, but the story that the gingerbread man tells is scary, and yet the gingerbread man and women are so adorable and colourful that it makes the story entertaining and not so scary..
fine Halloween programming.
It's the first Halloween for Shrek's kids and everybody is having tons of fun scaring the villagers.
Donkey and the gang challenges Shrek to a scary story contest.
Shrek accepts and takes everybody to Castle Duloc.
It has become a creepy rundown place after Lord Farquaad's demise.
Gingy tells the story of The Bride of Gingy.
Donkey and Puss in Boots tell the story of Boots Motel.
Finally, Shrek tells the story of The Shreksorcist where he is taking care of Pinocchio.It starts out fine and moves into a great space in Castle Duloc.
I would have loved to explore the castle and confront Lord Farquaad's ghost.
The individual stories each have their merits.
They are all fun in their own way.
I like Gingy the best.
It's a little too much of a vignettes movie.
I would have liked one story for the whole 25 minutes..
Great Fun for Horror Buffs.
Scared Shrekless (2010) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Highly entertaining 21-minute short takes place on Halloween as Shrek proudly teaches his kids the proper way to scare people.
This gets the "group" discussing how they might be able to scare Shrek and this is when donkey, the gingerbread man and Puss in Boots tell their scary stories.
It seems some people thought that the later SHREK films weren't all that good but I must say that I found this short to be extremely good and I think it's so good that it'll probably appeal to more horror film buffs than actual SHREK fans.
I say that because the film has some wonderfully clever homages to older films like PSYCHO and THE EXORCIST and I think both of them work tremendously well.
The stuff dealing with Puss in Boots and PSYCHO were highly entertaining and especially when Donkey got involved.
Another great moment happened when Shrek tells his story of a possessed Pinocchio.
The animation, as you'd expect, is top-notch as are the vocal performances with everyone really giving it their all and delivering fun performances.
Obviously there's nothing here too scary that kids won't be able to watch it but I do wonder how many young ones will recognize the films that are being paid homage to.
Either way, adults and especially those who enjoy horror movies should really enjoy this..
Frighteningly Funny!.
This short is so FRIGHTNINGLY FUNNY!
The stories are both creepy and hilarious(mostly hilarious)!
I had watched this short about 10 times before I learned that Eddie Murphy doesn't voice Donkey!
Gingerbread's story about him and a zombie like wife is funny!
But in the end, Gingerbread didn't scare anyone and went running off himself!
Donkey and Puss tried scaring the other off in the same setting several times!
In the end, Donkey wins!
They kept trying to scare each other off!
Shrek's story is by far the creepiest/funniest!
He sent Pinocchio running through a wood door!
Overall, I'd give Scared Shrekless a 10/10!.
Exceeds Expectations.
To be honest I went into this movie a little deflated expecting a cheap, run of the mill Halloween episode designed only to milk the last bit of magic from the Shrek franchise.
As with Shrek the Halls I was completely wrong.
It was excellent.
You can kind of tell that Eddie Murphy isn't there, but it doesn't matter his replacement does a fine job.Scared Shrekless sees our favourite characters head to Lord Farquad's mansion to see who can stay the night while telling scary stories.
We get a pretty chilling song from the information booth (Tuloc is a creepy place) that from the very start sets the scene.
We then head right into the action hearing Ginger Bread's, Donkey and Puss and Shrek give three parodies of horror movies.
The first and the third are definitely creepy; Puss & Donkey's tale is somewhat lacking and much more comic then those two.
However that being stated all three stories all three stories present a weird demented dark humour that will have you laughing like you did way back in Shrek 2.
The final scene we're Shrek is left alone with Donkey gives us what Shrek is really about as Shrek uses his ogre abilities (with a little help from the wife and kids) to prove who really is the King of Halloween.
With Donkey running and screaming away the final Shrek chapter ends with Shrek, Fiona and the kids hurling eggs at the 7 Dwarfs.
This little story is a gem that you can put with your copy of Shrek the Halls.
It will have you laughing out loud as you hear the horror stories you grew up with.
Its something you'll be able to watch and enjoy every Halloween.
I really recommend it, it was a great way to finish the Shrek franchise, a bit disappointing that Eddie Murphy wasn't there but a brilliant job overall.
Children under 7 won't get scared, you may wish to wait until your kids are about that age before you sit down and watch it with them.
Otherwise go for your lives..
Interesting, funny and clever.
This was based off of the fourth in the series, I thought.
But regardless, it was very well made considering that the fourth one was pushing it.
Heck the 3rd one pushed it.It was basically a bunch of the guys coming together for a challenge to decide who's the best story teller.
I loved each character's variation, and the puss in boots and donkey story which was changed constantly.
And Shrek's was pretty good as well.
The ending was really funny and I wasn't expecting it, haha.The thriller bonus video was pretty good as well as I got it on DVD.
I liked it and thought it was well made and funny!Rated 8/10..
Going out on a high note?.
This 20-minute short film from 2010 is so far the last entry to the hugely successful Shrek franchise and was released shortly after the fourth film 5 years ago.
And looking at it, you would not even guess that the franchise is apparently in decline.
This Halloween special was lots of fun.
The gang are having a contest, during which they will tell each other stories and the one who is scared last wins.
It looks like Donkey proves a worthy opponent for Shrek, but the real highlight were the stories, who were actually pretty creepy, especially the Gingerbread Man story with his girlfriend.
The reference on "The Exorcist" was nice as well.
Competent short movie I have to say.
The director, by the way, is the guy who also directed "Beauty and the Beast" a long time ago.
Gary Trousdale also came up with the script together with a handful other guys.
If they manage to keep that level, I would not even mind if they make a fifth Shrek feature film.
Who knows?
However, about this short film here, it was a success.
It got several nominations from the Annie Awards and deservedly so.
I enjoyed watching it and recommend it.