Brutal Five Nights At Freddy's Video Game Moments That Better Make It Into The Movie
After a lengthy development period, the horror video game franchise "Five Nights at Freddy's" is getting a feature film adaptation from Blumhouse Productions. Created by developer Scott Cawthon, "Five Nights at Freddy's" takes place in a pizzeria and entertainment center featuring large anthropomorphic animatronics led by Freddy Fazbear. However, after the lights go out, the restaurant's security guard is stalked by the animatronics as they come to life and scour the premises for human victims. Across the games, Cawthon crafts an extensive backstory that builds out the world and the history behind the restaurants and their sinister animatronics.
At the center of the "Five Nights at Freddy's" lore stands William Afton (Matthew Lillard), founder of the pizzerias and creator of the animatronics. More than just a robotics genius and restaurateur, William is a child serial killer, with his murders often involving his creations. This results in the animatronics themselves becoming haunted and bloodthirsty, hunting anyone in the pizzeria after hours, including protagonist — and security guard — Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson). With so many memorable points in its history, here are 10 brutal moments we hope make it into the "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie, directed by Emma Tammi.
The Bite of '83
The earliest event in the "Five Nights at Freddy's" timeline, the infamous Bite of '83, chronicles the pizzeria's first casualty. An unnamed boy is accosted by bullies at Fredbear's Family Diner in 1983, with his head shoved in the gaping mouth of an animatronic by Mike Afton. In what appears to be a genuine accident, the animatronic's mouth slams shut, killing the boy, resulting in the diner's shutdown. Flashbacks to the incident in "Five Nights at Freddy's 4" suggest that the victim is Mike's younger brother Evan Afton.
The Bite of '83 not only establishes Freddy Fazbear's infamous legacy but also places the Afton family at the heart of the animatronic carnage poised to escalate. The games don't make it clear if the child's death is what causes William to snap and become a serial killer but it does mark a turning point for him.
The Afton family and the small army of animatronics they've built their family business on are never the same in the wake of Evan's tragic accident.
The Purple Man's killing spree
Some time in 1983, around the time of Mike's death, William commits his first reported murder outside Fredbear's Diner. The spinoff game "Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator" reveals Charlotte Emily, the daughter of William's business partner Henry, is murdered by William outside the restaurant. Charlotte's ghost goes on to possess the Puppet, an animatronic introduced in "Five Nights at Freddy's 2." Violently restless by the circumstances of her death, the Puppet can only be placated by listening to her favorite song playing from a music box.
William goes on to murder an additional five children in June 1985 while wearing the purple Spring Bonnie costume in the pizzeria, earning him the nickname the Purple Man. It is heavily implied that William's group of victims are killed by forcibly being shoved into the animatronics and painfully crushed to death. William murders five more children in 1987 before largely vanishing, evading the law again. With William confirmed to appear in the upcoming film, the franchise's most murderous figure will likely get his incredibly dark backstory on-screen.
The horrors of Sister Location
Between his more hands-on killing sprees in 1985 and 1987, William opens the animatronic-featured restaurant Circus Baby's Pizza World in "Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location." As opposed to his previous ventures, William programs the animatronics at Pizza World specifically to hunt and murder children. In what makes for the franchise's most gruesome element, the animatronics' modus operandi has them scoop out the innards of their victims, leaving just their empty skin husks behind. Through this process, William seeks to harvest a supernatural substance he discovered from his past victims after they begin haunting the animatronics he places them in.
As with most violence in "Five Nights at Freddy's," the carnage here is more implied than shown but the implications themselves are horrific. William effectively creates a makeshift factory to murder and dismember children, which may be a step too far for the movie to cover. However, the detail does take William's villainy to its lethal apex while underscoring how dangerous the animatronics are. More importantly, the events of "Sister Location" explain what happens to William's two remaining children.
Circus Baby is hungry
Heading up the bloody mayhem at Pizza World is an animatronic named Circus Baby, presented to the public as having an ice cream dispenser on her torso. In reality, Circus Baby's torso can open up and draw her prey inside, crushing them to death while she maintains her cheerful facade. Deadlier than the other animatronics at Pizza World, William advises his daughter Elizabeth to stay away from Circus Baby. Instead, Elizabeth disobeys her father and tries to play with Circus Baby, only to become another one of its victims.
Elizabeth's death is an especially pivotal moment in the Afton family saga and narrative timeline. It is the Bite of '83 that set the stage for William's descent into murderous madness and it's Elizabeth's death that escalates the main story. The Circus Baby incident prompts William to close Pizza World and sell the Freddy Fazbear license and its animatronics to a new business venture. This leads to the opening of the main restaurants from the first two games, with their own haunted animatronics.
The cruel fate of Mike Afton
The protagonist of "Sister Location" is Mike Afton, now an adult after inadvertently killing his brother with the Bite of '83. The game follows Mike venturing into the shut-down and abandoned Pizza World to rescue his sister Elizabeth after learning her spirit possesses the animatronic that killed her. This proves to be a trap, with Mike lured by Circus Baby to the room where the restaurant's victims were dismembered. Mike is killed, with his innards scooped out by the animatronic Ennard, who proceeds to wear his skin to pose as Mike outside the restaurant.
Mike's death effectively wipes out William's bloodline, though it doesn't stop William's story there. Ennard's victory represents the goriest moment in the franchise, with the details behind the violence no longer left to the imagination. If there was ever a moment that may be too brutal to appear in the "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie, Ennard killing Mike would be it. Which, of course, is precisely why exactly the gruesome moment should make it into the film.
The Bite of '87
The original "Five Nights at Freddy's" references an incident colloquially known as the Bite of '87, taking place after William sold the Freddy Fazbear license. The resulting new restaurant, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, gains four of William's animatronics, unaware that they're haunted by the spirits of William's victims. During a birthday party, a child approaches one of the animatronics, only to have it bite their head, severely damaging their brain but surviving. The incident temporarily shutters Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, giving the pizzeria its own notorious reputation.
The Bite of '87 ranks as the most notable piece of lore behind the franchise, referenced heavily in the first two games. It's virtually guaranteed that the accident will occur in the "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie, given how much it looms over the series. Only mentioned in the games, the film has the chance of plunging audiences into the thick of the Bite of '87. And with fans speculating for years which specific animatronic claims responsibility for the bite, the movie can finally confirm who the culprit is.
Springtrap is born
Like any good villain, William gets his comeuppance from the instruments of death he constructed to carry out his murders. Sneaking into the pizzeria to collect the supernatural residue from his victims left in the animatronics, William is ambushed by their ghosts haunting the robotic suits. William is stuffed into a spare Spring Bonnie animatronic and crushed to death in the same manner as the killings he carried out. However, just like those he murdered, William finds his spirit haunting the animatronic he is killed in, taking on the nickname Springtrap.
Just as deadly post-mortem, William's spirit goes on to haunt other animatronics in later games after Springtrap is eventually destroyed. The franchise needs an antagonist that's human, not just a largely silent animatronic, and William fulfills that while adding to the lore. William's eventual death at the hands of his murderous creations feels both cathartic and poetic, and fitting of his crimes. And if there's anything that could set up a potential sequel, William's monstrous rebirth as Springtrap lends itself perfectly to that possibility.
The animatronics run amuck
William's numerous victims take the lethal pain he inflicted on them in life and share it with others while haunting the animatronics. After relocating to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, the animatronics develop a reputation for coming online at night and mistaking anyone they find as a fellow animatronic outside of their suit. This results in them taking the hapless bystander and stuffing them into a spare animatronic suit, killing them just as William had to his targets. The murderous tendency leads to a rotating set of night security guards at the pizzeria, either by their own deaths or resignation after learning the truth.
The "Game Over" screen in the original "Five Nights at Freddy's" game makes this horror visible, with the failed player character's eyes gruesomely dangling out of a spare suit. Other imagery in the subsequent video games shows the skeletal jaws of other victims visible from the animatronics' open maws. In order to be taken seriously, the "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie needs to stack up a body count to lend a sense of stakes and terror. Because of the games, we know how the animatronics will make good on that expectation.
Phone Guy's final message
The earliest presumed victim of the haunted animatronics in Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, outside of the Bite of '87, is Mike Schmidt's unnamed predecessor. Nicknamed Phone Guy for the phone messages he left his eventual successor, the man is heard being overwhelmed by animatronics in his fourth message. Though Phone Guy's final fate remains uncertain, the terrifying Golden Freddy animatronic is heard roaring, abruptly ending the recording. The fifth and final message left for Mike features garbled, demonic voices suggesting Phone Guy's employment was cut short.
The "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie has the chance to reveal on-screen what exactly happens to Phone Guy during his ill-fated final shift. Given what players can surmise from the original game, Phone Guy did not get his happy ending after warning Mike about the job. If the animatronics' usual behavior provides any indication, Phone Guy might be stuffed in one of the spare animatronic suits in the back. At the very least, maybe Phone Guy can finally get an actual name as he makes his cinematic last stand.
Lights out
The "Five Nights at Freddy's" games don't rely on gore to deliver scares but rather inescapably mounting tension punctuated by jump scares. The most suspenseful sequence in the original game occurs when players run out of power by keeping an eye on the animatronics and the emergency doors shut too long. As the generator fails, the pizzeria plunges into total darkness, security cameras cease functioning, and the doors open wide. Taking advantage of the situation, Freddy himself taunts the players with a birthday song before attacking them.
Though not physically brutal, some variation on this scene should make an appearance in the film, perhaps in its climax. Unrelentingly taut, the lights-out sequence showcases what "Five Nights at Freddy's" does best as players hold their breath hoping Freddy doesn't strike. In a darkened movie theater with Surround Sound, this scene would only be more terrifying as the characters try to hide in the shadows. "Five Nights at Freddy's" lives and dies on how well it delivers suspense — and this scene could translate beautifully.