In Pixar’s Monsters, Inc., the company uses children’s screams to fill its scream canisters and generate energy.
The film presents Monsters, Incorporated as Monstropolis’s main power provider. Scarers travel through doors connected to children’s bedrooms, frighten the children, and collect their screams in large canisters. The screams are then processed as an energy source for the monster city.
The central conflict begins when the company’s scream-based system faces a shortage and some characters pursue dangerous ways to increase production. By the end of the story, laughter is shown to be a more powerful energy source than screaming. That discovery changes the company’s business model and the relationship between monsters and children. Thus, “scream” describes the original fuel, while laughter becomes the replacement source.