Five Nights At Freddy's Explained: The Story Behind One Of This Year's Biggest Horror Movies
The horror mavens over at Blumhouse have finally released a teaser trailer for arguably their most highly-anticipated release, "Five Nights at Freddy's." The film is an adaptation of Scott Cawthon's absurdly popular video game series, which started out as an indie game on the Desura and later Steam platforms, but become a global phenomenon after footage of popular YouTube Let's Players Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach and Matthew "MatPat" Patrick getting scared out of their minds became viral sensations. In 2015, a year after the release of the game, Warner Bros. announced that they were going to adapt the game for the big screen. That, uh, obviously didn't ever come to fruition.
In 2017, things started picking up steam when Blumhouse announced that they were to be the new home of "FNAF," but after a series of delays and director changes, fans started to give up hope that they'd ever see their beloved horror story in the theaters. Fortunately, the wait is almost over, and with the trailer providing visual evidence that the movie very much exists and is absolutely happening, it feels safe to get excited again about the possibility of being scared into oblivion.
But how the hell did "Five Nights at Freddy's" get so popular, and how can Blumhouse turn a video game where you never leave a security room into a feature-length horror film? Allow me to serve as your humble guide to the world of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a magical place for kids and grown-ups alike, where fantasy and fun come to life...
And then stuff your dead body into an animatronic puppet.
Who created this nightmare?
"Five Nights at Freddy's" is the brainchild of video game developer Scott Cawthon, who broke into the gaming world making Christian-focused video games like "Pilgrim's Progress" and "The Desolate Hope," the latter of which is essentially anti-abortion propaganda hidden within a video game. In 2013, he put out a family-friendly game called "Chipper & Sons Lumber Co.," which was lambasted by critics, with a few noting that the characters looked like terrifying animatronic creatures you'd see in a place like Chuck E. Cheese or ShowBiz Pizza Place. The negative reviews had a massive impact on Cawthon, but the comments inspired him to pivot toward the horror game sphere, creating "Five Nights at Freddy's."
Understanding the man behind the game is important because Cawthon seems to be at the center of some of the delays for the film adaptation. When Blumhouse announced that veteran director Chris Columbus had left the project in 2021, it was indicated that Cawthon had the final say on the script, and according to Jason Blum, "It's taken longer than I hoped to get the right story."
Cawthon retired from professional game development in 2021, but not before his history of donations was made public, revealing that he made significant financial donations to conservative political candidates, including the disgraced, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump, who was recently found liable for sexual abuse. Before his retirement, Cawthon expanded the "Five Nights at Freddy's" universe to 13 games (including one in space) and 32 books/graphic novels. As of publication, Cawthon is still determining a successor to helm the continuation of the franchise.
What is the game about?
Considering "Five Nights at Freddy's" has hundreds of hours of lore at this point, it may seem overwhelming to try and make sense of what this story is all about. The game started out with humble beginnings, where players were cast as the night watch security guard for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, only to discover that the animatronics come to life at night, and kill whoever they find. It's almost too perfect in its simplicity, but Scott Cawthon has expanded the story in some pretty wild and gruesome directions.
Freddy Fazbear's Pizza was once a thriving utopia for family fun but is now a run-down, derelict shadow of its former glory due to a string of tragedies connected to the pizzeria. Fazbear Entertainment was co-founded by a man named William Afton, who is also behind the company Afton Robotics. He's also a serial killer. It was rumored that Afton used the kid-friendly allure of Freddy Fazbear to kidnap and murder five children, shoving their corpses into the animatronic mascots of the pizzeria: Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy.
"Five Nights at Freddy's 3" introduced Fazbear's Fright, a horror attraction built to capitalize on the real-life horrors and urban legends that surround the famed chain of pizzerias, while "Five Nights at Freddy's 4" is a prequel game that chronicles the "Bite of '83" tragedy, one of the many horrific "accidents" related to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. The story focuses on a little boy with a massive fear of animatronics who was forced to attend a birthday party at the pizzeria, where his older brother tried to scare him by putting his head in the FredBear's mouth. Tragically, the terrified tears of the little boy caused a short in the animatronic, triggering the mouth to snap close and kill the child.
This game is dark, and it only gets weirder as the franchise goes on.
What will the movie be about?
Blumhouse has been pretty tight-lipped about which elements of which games will be incorporated into the film, but based on the trailer, it seems like "Five Nights at Freddy's 1-4" will make up a bulk of the lore. For that reason, I'll hold back any additional spoilers or surprises revealed in the later games, but it wouldn't be a shock if little elements from later games were incorporated as Easter eggs, not unlike "The Super Mario Bros. Movie." Considering how much the world of the game has expanded over the years, Blumhouse could easily have a hot new franchise on their hands.
The final shooting script was co-written by Scott Cawthon, Seth Cuddeback, and director Emma Tammi, with Cawthon even expressing during a Reddit AMA that he was really pleased with the outcome and the decision to go with what he called "the Mike screenplay." This is a reference to the character Mike Schmidt, the protagonist of the first five games who is being played by Josh Hutcherson. The film's official description of the character follows:
"Riddled with guilt over a tragedy in his past, and now struggling to take care of his younger sister on his own, Mike is low on options when he lands a new job to pay the bills; the night security guard at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. Mike is vulnerable with a tough exterior. Though he means well, his obsession with digging for truth may have potentially disastrous consequences."
Yeah, this definitely sounds like Blumhouse is pulling from "FNAF" 1-4, perhaps even the fifth game that centered on Circus Baby's Pizza World, the sister location of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. It's already been established that Matthew Lillard will be playing William Afton and Elizabeth Lail is playing Vanessa A. (a character introduced in "Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted"), proof that the film is going beyond the original gameplay and incorporating the complex lore.
But how did the fandom get so huge?
As of publication, the trailer for "Five Nights at Freddy's" has amassed over seven million views on YouTube in under 18 hours, and that's not counting the views garnered from an innumerable amount of "trailer reaction videos" or channels that posted the footage to their own feeds. The "FNAF" fandom is huge, passionate, and leans extremely young for a horror franchise. When the game first gained popularity, the culture of how people consume media was changing. The streaming wars had begun, Blockbuster announced that they were shutting down, and YouTube had become a legitimate channel for entertainment.
Playing "Five Nights at Freddy's" (or watching playthroughs online) was the evolutionary next step of staying up late and seeing a midnight movie on TV. Video game YouTubers often have young fanbases, so they were the first ones to be introduced to the games through their favorite content creators. Additionally, there was a void of new gateway/transitionary horror films and TV shows that could bridge the gap between family-friendly spookfests, and legitimate horror releases. Pair that with the fact the animatronic designs were meant to appeal to children within the world of the game, and "FNAF" found the perfect recipe to serve as a generation's introduction to the horror genre.
Freddy Fazbear and the rest of the anthropomorphic mascots shown in "Five Nights at Freddy's" might as well be the new Mount Rushmore of horror icons, and perhaps the new Blumhouse film will add the "legitimacy" to the franchise so many old-school horror fans are fighting like hell to avoid embracing. Slasher villains stalking babysitters don't resonate with young audiences like they used to, and the new face of fear is covered in faux fur.
"Five Nights at Freddy's" will arrive in theaters and on Peacock beginning October 27, 2023.