After nine long years of waiting through countless script rewrites (12 to be exact), overall restarts, company changes, and even director switches, the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie is finally upon us. In just one week, we will see the beloved animals we’ve become acquainted with on the big screen. As a fan of the online game Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) since 2014, to say I’m excited for this movie is the understatement of the century. Jason Blum, Emma Tammi, and of course, Scott Cawthon worked tirelessly through the many road bumps of production and were determined to deliver Freddy and the gang to the big screen.

Alright, you may be wondering, “How big of a FNAF nerd is this guy?” and to that I say, be prepared. My journey started where most people did, with famous YouTuber,  Markiplier’s Five Nights at Freddy’s gameplay. I remember being frightened and Bonnie’s uncanny appearance in the thumbnail when I was only a kid (I didn’t even know he was a bunny back then, since his ears are cropped out of the frame on that video).  Since then, I’ve kept up with every game entry, piece of media, and how could anyone forget the massive waves of merchandise, good or mediocre. My room ia practically walled with many of the franchise’s posters, I have over 60ish plushies, and I have almost every book ever produced in the franchise. To say this movie was a dream come true is underexaggerating my excitement! Alright, you may be wondering, “How big of a FNAF nerd is this guy?” and to that I say, be prepared. My journey started where most people did, with famous YouTuber,  Markiplier’s Five Nights at Freddy’s gameplay. I remember being frightened and Bonnie’s uncanny appearance in the thumbnail when I was only seven (I didn’t even know he was a bunny back then, since his ears are cropped out of the frame on that video).  Since then, I’ve kept up with every game entry, piece of media, and how could anyone forget the massive waves of merchandise, good or mediocre. My room is practically walled with many of the franchise’s posters, I have over 60ish plushies, and I have almost every book ever produced in the franchise. To say this movie was a dream come true is underexaggerating my excitement!

The four main animatronics, Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy have been treated with immense care when thinking about how to translate them into real-life functioning robots and suits. They are almost ripped straight from the video games, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. I think despite it being a horror movie, it has a major chance to stand out among great video game adaptations, alongside The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Arcane. It is projected to be the highest grossing opening for any horror film ever, which shows the power of our fan base. It’s safe to say I think we are all excited for this movie!

And of course, how could we wrap up our discussion of the FNAF movie without talking about Scott Cawthon’s upbringing. When Scott was starting off with computers, he first made direct-to-video short movies; in fact, they were Christian movies! He made a less than stellar paycheck doing this, so he eventually turned to game development. His first notable game was titled: The Desolate Hope. In this game, you play as a sentient coffee maker running through this dark and mechanical world filled with giant robots. Of course, this would be part of the inspiration for Five Nights at Freddy’s, but the true spark was with his last game before FNAF, Chipper and Sons Lumber Co.

This game was thought by most people as just okay. Some people thought it was bad however, and one person left a review that would change the course of Scott’s life. Scott was not a “great” modeler back then, so this person commented that the game was boring, and that Chipper looked like he was a scary animatronic bear and belonged in a horror game. SPARK! After this, Scott put together Five Nights at Freddy’s, which was about a security guard in a Chuck E. Cheese-type of restaurant at night who is stalked by deadly animatronic robots that came to life. Cawthon even looked to fund the game online. Unfortunately, he raised zero dollars, but of course, releasing it through self funding more than paid back for the development of the game.

Now that we’ve talked about the developer, I think it’s time to talk about what I think the story of the movie will be. Spoilers will indeed follow.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS!

The story, unlike what many may think, does NOT start at the first game, but I assume they’ll come back to all of it in later entries. The basic premise is that Fazbear Entertainment’s co-founder, William Afton, took one of the costumes at the restaurant, specifically the yellow bunny costume named Spring Bonnie, and murdered five children. He would do this by luring them into a backroom and then stab them to death. He would then stuff their lifeless bodies into the main cast of animatronics to cover his tracks. After a couple of days of being stuffed in there, a doll-like puppet, creatively named The Puppet, who possessed itself, gave the kids a second chance at living for the sole purpose of vengeance. The children will attack any adult who they deem as unsafe and stuff them into a suit, too.

Then, they are lured back into the staff room by a purple Freddy ghost (Shadow Freddy) and are then dissembled by Afton, after he realizes that their souls are somehow still intact and living. After all of them have been disassembled, the ghosts seek revenge and chase him into his old Spring Bonnie costume. One fatal flaw about the suits is that they are “Springlock Technology”, which basically means the suits double as both a robot and a wearable suit to cut costs. The metal endoskeletons would press up against the outer rims of the body parts, which allowed an employee to slip into them for wearable use. The Springlocks, however, are very easy to trigger, which means it is very easy to be fatally wounded. The staff room where the suite was located was moist, which is a major Achilles heel with the Springlocks, and Afton’s suit gets set off, leaving his bones crushed, his eyes pierced, and leads him to slowly bleed out and die in the same weapon he donned to kill. But it was revealed that he did not die and was instead permanently bonded to the suit.

With that being said, Emma Tammi has said there is one character that we have not seen in any promotional footage that is in the movie, and I believe I know who it may be. I believe it must be either The Puppet, or the infamous Balloon Boy, who both originate from Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. The Puppet is a major character, seeing as she was the one to give the children a second chance at life, so I don’t see why they wouldn’t include her in the movie. The song “Pop Goes the Weasel”, which is used for her in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, was recently heard vaguely in a recent TV spot for the movie. This adds to my growing suspicion of her involvement. Balloon Boy is only seen in a drawing spotted in one of the movie’s trailers, but we haven’t seen him physically yet, so he is also a possibility.

Finally, let’s discuss human characters. Michael Afton is one of William’s children, who deeply hates his father for the evil things he’s done and actively works to undo his actions; even going as far as allowing his body to be replaced entirely with metal to be used as a disguise for robots. But we are not that complex with the overall storyline yet, so I believe we will not see any elements  in the film from any game past the first three games. Who is Michael in the movie you might ask? Well, it’s simply Josh Hutcherson’s character, Mike. There is absolutely no way he isn’t an Afton; he is only known by Mike, no last name or anything!

Who is Abby’s character supposed to represent? This one is a bit trickier, but I believe she is supposed to mirror Afton’s only daughter, Elizabeth. She was tragically killed way before the events of the first game, but I think they’re going to change her story a little bit. In the trailers, we see the animatronics take a liking to her, so I believe they’ll try to get her to die to the hands of Afton, so she’ll be able to join their group. I know this sounds insane, but I think the reason for this is they see Afton as a father figure, or leader of their group, because they only see him wearing the Spring Bonnie suit. I am sure that Mike will eventually convince them that Afton is the “bad guy”, and they’ll turn against him. All of this is drawn from The Silver Eyes’ which is the first novel in FNAF’s trilogy novel series. Adding onto all of this, I’m predicting that Abby will be the one to set off the Springlocks, as it was the female protagonist, Charlie, who set them off in the novel.

Major theory aside (get used to it, that’s what we do ;]), I am very excited for this movie, and you best be assured that I will bring a plush or two with me! Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s’ will come to theaters and be streaming on Peacock October 27^th. Also, be sure to check out the latest troll game from Scott titled FNAF: The Movie: The Game. He promises a teaser for the movie if you beat it, and it’s a fun short game!

If you’re too lazy to play through the game to unlock the YouTube teaser video that is promised from this, you could click this link to view it instead! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkYJYLrqfAo

Angelo Soto