A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

In 2014, indie game developer Scott Cawthon published what was going to be his “final” game. His past games hadn’t garnered the attention of the wider gaming playerbase; with his recent game Chipper and Sons Lumber Co. not meeting his expectations, he decided to create one more game before closing the book on game development.

Of his recent game, a critic had complained how the mascot characters of the game were too creepy for children to enjoy. With such a simple critic, Scott decided that if his mascot designs already looked horrifying, his next video game would lean into the horror genre, using his ‘talent’ in creating horror mascots as the central theme of the game. The rest was history. Five Nights at Freddy’s took the horror genre to another level of terror, sending millions of gamers screaming in their seats. Scott did not expect such major success with his ‘final’ game, beloved by millions of fans worldwide.

In the game, you work as a night guard for Freddy Fazbear’s pizzeria, and throughout your shift you have to survive the night against four ghastly and bloodthirsty animatronics: Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy. There’s a monitor for you to locate the animatronics that haunt the pizzeria, before slowly making their way to the office you reside in.

Your only method of survival? Shutting the doors on them before they jumpscare you and put you in an endoskeleton. Another catch is the fact that the office building runs on a limited power supply, and actions such as closing the door and checking the monitor use up this power. If it reaches 0%, be prepared to be greeted by Mr. Freddy Fazbear himself. The game literally punishes you for over relying on your only source of safety. And the worst part is you must always return to the pizzeria the next night, with the animatronics growing deadlier as the nights progress, until the climax comes with the fifth night, where the animatronics go all out for your soul. (There’s also a sixth and seventh night, which is the true hard mode of the game, but we shan’t dive further into that.)

FNAF had all the survival horror elements that appealed to a wide audience; Creepy and iconic characters, the high stakes tension that came with managing electricity while fending off the animatronics, and random glitches that occur out of nowhere, blurring the lines between surrealism and reality. Not to mention, a hidden story that required the most dedicated of fans to comb through and piece together, bringing to light the terrifying lore that brought these animatronics to life in the first place. For many gamers at that time, it was a breath of fresh air in the horror genre.

Scott Cawthon proceeded to expand the franchise, creating a sequel in the same year. As of 2025, the series is now on its 10th game, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit (Based on the Fazbear Fright’s book series), with 7 other spinoffs and hundreds of fan games created by talented game developers who grew up with FNAF. If you were anywhere on the Internet you would have definitely seen them. Indie musicians were creating music inspired by the games; there was plenty of fan fiction and fan art of people’s favourite animatronics. Many forums took place on Discord and Reddit discussing theories on the lore of the games. The ever growing lore of the franchise further inspired Scott Cawthon to write books based on the video game’s lore, with FNAF books now dominating an entire shelf in the teens horror section of your local bookstore.

It seemed the franchise had no limits to its growth, for it had taken over all forms of media– all except for the filmmaking industry. For the longest time, hardcore fans demanded a FNAF movie. In 2023, their wish came true.

THE MOVIE’S HISTORY AND PRODUCTION JOURNEY

To say that the production process for this movie was a long and tedious one would be almost an insult, especially to the fans who had been waiting for the movie since it was first announced in 2015. Indeed, there was a time where many fans had accepted that the movie might never come out at all. Originally, the film had been set to release under Warner Bros. Pictures, with Gil Kenan, best known for the animated horror film Monster House, as its director. Problems began to make themselves clear in 2017, when Scott Cawthon announced that the movie had met “several delays and roadblocks” thanks to “problems within the movie industry as a whole”.

Kenan would leave the role of director later that year, and the role was handed to Chris Columbus, who would then be replaced by Emma Tammi in 2021. The years 2017 to 2022 were rough for fans that anticipated the movie’s release, filled with announcements of production delays, delayed release dates, and nine rejected scripts. Until December of 2022, when Matthew Lillard and Josh Hutcherson were revealed to have been casted as William Afton and Mike Schmidt respectively, many fans remained skeptical that the movie would ever see the light of day. And even then, many fans held their breaths until official trailers dropped late in June of 2023.

TECHNICAL SIDE OF THE MOVIE

Most live-action films use CGI to bring their characters to life, but when every movie is using CGI, audiences may start finding CGI cheap. Like it was nothing more than the plain old ordinary.

The FNAF movie decided that to bring their child-inhabited robot mascots to life, they would build actual, 8 foot tall puppets for filming.

Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy were brought to life by the amazing handiwork of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, the creators of the Muppets and The Dark Crystal.  Each part of the animatronic body (head, torso, arms, hands) was created individually, and then assembled onto the main “spine” of the puppet. The subtle details of the ears twitching, eyebrows furrowing and the blinking eyes were controlled individually by their own puppeteers. The filmmakers knew this was the right direction for the film, for the robots’ uncanny movements fit the surreal vibe the four animatronics would naturally possess. Each body part was controlled by a separate individual, strengthening the robotic movements of the animatronics. If they’d wanted to make it even more realistic, they could’ve gotten the robots to roam around a graveyard, and let the smell linger on them after. (If you know, you know).

For the three main mascots, Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica, the animatronics had two versions: the pure robot versions and the ones where actors could wear costumes of those characters. In some cases human actors were needed to capture the animatronics at their liveliest (eg. when dancing). Otherwise, scenes of the movie where their eyes glowed were the most definite scenes that the robotic versions used.

The remaining member of the gang, Foxy the pirate fox animatronic, had no costume-counterpart. It took six puppeteers to control Foxy’s movements when filming. As Foxy was supposed to be worn-down animatronic, his endoskeleton would’ve been very revealing, so it wouldn’t have been possible to put a human inside the costume while keeping it realistic. In the end– in every scene– Foxy was always a real, non-human physical threat to the actors.

Certain malfunctions did occur with the robots, with Foxy having overheated once, to the point where it was considered smoking circuitry, and the filming had to be delayed slightly, but luckily that happened only once. Another time, when Chica’s eyes became distorted while in the studio, the filmmakers decided to use this new Chica distorted eye look to recreate a scene in the movie where Chica would get shocked, thinking the distorted look was a more fitting appearance for a shocked animatronics. Both Jim Henson’s Creature Shop and the studio did a fantastic job in taking a realistic approach to robots created in the 80s, and doing their video game counterparts justice.

THE MOVIE’S RECEPTION

Reception for the movie seems to be a confusing mix of positive and negative opinions. Fans of the franchise generally seemed to enjoy the film for its easter eggs, technical marvels, and references to the fandom; general audiences also tended to receive the film more positively, with the film receiving an A- on CinemaScore. Critics however, seemed to disagree: the film received a 32% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, with a comment stating that the film “may be fun to watch for fans of the game, but most viewers of any other persuasion will find this adaptation muddled and decidedly unscary.”

That is not to say that fans, critics and general audiences disagreed on everything. One remark in particular often gets thrown around: “The film should have been scarier.” Many blame the film’s PG-13 rating and the somewhat recent rise in popularity of horror media aimed towards children, such as games like Poppy’s Playtime and Garten of Banban. Fans and critics alike agree that the film seems to be caught in a strange tug of war between wanting to appeal to a wider, younger audience, and wanting to appease older horror fans. One critic in particular, Mark Kennedy, said that the film was “Caught between PG and R, as well as lost at the crossroads of inadvertent comedy and horror”

And indeed, it seems like there was an initial cut of the film meant to be more explicit, more gory. Matthew Lillard, who played the film’s villain, was reported to have lost his voice for several days after filming. This led many to speculate that one of the final scenes of the movie, where his character gets crushed by a malfunction that causes the internal locks and machinery of his animatronic suit to pop out, was meant to be more violent than what made it into the final cut. Some fans in particular felt disappointed by this, as the original “spring-lock” scene in FNAF 3’s fifth-night minigame is considered one of the most iconic and lore-relevant scenes in the games. In defense of the film’s rating, director Emma Tammi stated that they “wanted to be inclusive of the younger audiences” as the fanbase of the games is primarily teenaged.

Negative critical reception, however, did not stop the movie from doing well at the box office. The overwhelming popularity of the franchise as well as its PG-13 rating and impressive animatronics guaranteed the film’s financial success. The film grossed almost $300 million worldwide, setting the record for best ever opening weekend for a horror film in 2023.

FUTURE OF THE FRANCHISE

2024 marked the 10th anniversary of the birth of the first ever FNAF games. The franchise, starting from the home of a passionate indie game developer, is now widespread across all forms of media. And with the beginning of 2025, the franchise still has a lot to offer.

Blumhouse is already cooking up a sequel to the films. The studio has teased pictures of Mangle and Toy Bonnie heads; characters based on the second FNAF games. Fans are certain the second movie installment will be based on the second game, just as the first movie was based on the first game.

Meanwhile, in the video game series, Steel Wool studios is developing a new game based on the FNAF Security Breach series: Secrets of the Mimic, set to release this year. 

The future may be uncertain, and FNAF may die down eventually, but it always comes back regardless.

Written by Lee Ann and Sereen

Edited by Ryan

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