Perfectly adorable

Absolutely brilliant

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This DVD extra was directed by John Lasseter. Mater loves to go around Radiator Springs and pull stunts on Lightning McQueen and try to frighten him when it is least expected.The Cars turn the table on Mater by telling him the tale of the Ghostlight, an orb that comes out of the dark which rattles Mater. Later on in the night Mater lets his imagination get the better off him as he fears the Ghostlight is right behind him.For a short the animation is very good, you can see on the screen the care Pixar has taken in how they draw the characters and lit them. Just check out the reflections on the bonnets.

It goes without saying how clear the animation is here. The attention to details and a very simple story makes it a wonderful 7 minute short.Derived from the "Cars" universe, it talks about how Mater teases his friends and how they decide to take revenge, all in a funny manner. The imaginative plot also delivers a message to children who will perceive it permanently.The various themes it samples are self-righteousness, sarcasm, dear, hallucination (kind of) and light horror. Music and background score add to the fun. Fantastic direction & very colorful setup. The niceties, of you focus on them, are bound to reveal how the makers are filled with creativity.BOTTOM LINE: A very cool short; definitely one of Pixar's best.

I might have seen this short when renting 'Cars' a few years ago but had forgotten about it. Upon renting the first volume of Pixar shorts on DVD, I watched it to refresh my memory but I didn't find it as engaging as 'Jack Jack Attack,' 'Burn-E' and 'Dug's Special Mission.'Two of the strongest aspects are the song 'Behind the Clouds' that opens and closes the short and the lovely fluorescent-coloured lighting that sufficiently illuminated the dark sky for the most part but some shots are too dark and not detailed enough, especially those when Mater is left alone and is scared of what he thinks is the ghost light. There a a few clichéd moments such as the record scratch when the police car mentions the ghost light, the false alarm situation of Mater thinking the cute lightning bug was the ghost light and a slow-motion scream. The dialogue was a tad simplistic and at one point repetitive, but I liked the upbeat-to-slow country music playing after the generic-sounding scary music. There were also some laugh-out-loud moments such as Mater playing tricks on the other cars and trying to scare them, especially Lightning McQueen hoping Mater wouldn't scare him, the brief appearance of the cow tractors (they made me laugh in the main feature) and Mater not noticing the Screaming Banshee after the opening credits. Overall this is one of the weaker feature-related Pixar shorts but its music is mostly worth a listen and the lighting is on the whole beautiful. 7/10.

"Mater and the Ghostlight", made by Pixar dinosaur John Lasseter and the rather-new Dan Scanlon, is an okay little short-film with the main protagonists from Cars and can make for a decent watch during Halloween for example. It's the last movie ever with screen legend Paul Newman. The first 90 seconds or so, we just see all the characters, like a fire-fighter car watering a bunch of flowers etc. Then it enters scary territory as one of the cars tells his very own little horror story and we see it brought to life not much later.People often say the Cars films are Pixar's weakest and this one here is probably the equivalent when it comes to their short-films. Of course, it's not totally bad at all. The animation is great as always and I liked the "the scream of what?"-twist towards the end. This was pretty funny. Otherwise, it's not really a must watch unless you're still very young or you really loved the Cars movie.