What makes Sid vicious? Film fanatics and other deep thinkers have been pondering that question for almost two decades, ever since Pixar kindly unleashed the first Toy Story — and the memorable next-door-neighbor-from-hell Sid “Zero Skull” Phillips — on the moviegoing public. We know very little about the disturbed (and disturbing) kid other than that his sudden appearance and immediately troubling antics push the brilliant and sunny animated comedy into some very dark places. Nothing that we see of his mom and dad, for instance — well, the very little we see or hear of them — suggests that his home life is a waking horror. So what is it, exactly, that drives the snaggletoothed maniac’s toy-mutilating orgies?
One might argue that Sid is not quite as beastly as he appears and that his ugliness — physical, emotional, you name it — as depicted onscreen is really nothing more than a heightened or intensified representation of a healthy teenage boy as seen through the eyes of some innocent and unworldly toys. Interesting argument. Unfortunately, it completely ignores the fact that Sid appears to have no friends, has an explosive temper, is clearly obsessed with violence and destruction and seems to derive something very much like a sexual thrill from the prospect of strapping Buzz Lightyear to a rocket and launching him into oblivion. In the end, Sid might be nothing more than an archetypal bully consisting of ones, zeroes and CGI magic. That doesn’t make him any less dreadful. Shudder.