Five Nights at Freddy's is an accidental phenomenon the likes of which the world has never known.
Since the first game's release in 2014, the hit horror series has become a gaming sensation
that's spawned sequels, a spinoff, tie-in toys, multiple novels, and now, thanks to
Blumhouse Productions and writer-director Chris Columbus, a feature film.
With a track record that includes Gremlins and The Goonies, the filmmaker sounds like
a perfect fit for the series' twisted brand of horror-comedy.
All the elements for a great horror flick are there; they just have to be used right.
Here are all the things we're hoping to see in Five Nights at Freddy's.
Light of the morning
While the details are always different, each Five Nights at Freddy's game boils down to
one goal, surviving the night.
Whether it's a lonely late shift security guard or a terrified kid in their bedroom,
each game's protagonist is stuck having to do everything they can to bat back the monsters
hunting them.
Their only salvation?
Six AM.
Many of the game's most white-knuckle moments come in the last stretch of each level before
morning, after all your resources have been exhausted and the only thing that can save
you is the clock.
So, obviously, the movie would do well to follow the same rules.
A harried hero in a horrid situation, pushed to the edge of being slaughtered by monsters
which become harmless at the first glimpse of morning?
A helpless hero getting saved by the clock will go a long way toward making the movie
feel like the game, especially if we get a few of the best scares right near the end
of 5 AM.
For Five Nights at Freddy's fans, the voice of the "Phone Guy" is an essential part of
the Fazbear experience.
"Upon discovering a damage or death has occurred, a missing person report will be filed within
90 days or as soon as property and premises have been thoroughly cleaned and bleached."
Cleverly blending exposition with instruction, the Phone Guy's messages set the tone for
each night with chipper yet ominous warnings about the player's duties, creating a sense
of isolation that shouldn't be discarded in the translation to film.
"These characters, if they happen to see you after hours, probably won't recognize you
as a person, they'll most likely see you as a metal endoskeleton without its costume on."
It's pretty much a no-brainer to include Phone Guy for spooling out the series' weird lore,
and would also be perfect for a cameo appearance
from the games' developer and original Phone Guy voice, Scott Cawthon.
Hearing a tired Cawthon on the other end of the line would be a nice nod to the man who
laid the foundation for a phenomenon.
"So remember, these characters hold a special place in the hearts of children, and we need
to show them a little respect.
Okay?"
Foxy and friends
It almost goes without saying that a Five Nights at Freddy's movie isn't going to work
unless Freddy brings the whole crew.
Inspired by the real-life arcade-and-animatronics pizza franchise Chuck E. Cheese's, the Five
Nights at Freddy's series includes a whole extended family of animatronic entertainers,
and the movie would do well to invite them all.
Something jumping out of the dark and grabbing you can get old, so the series' animatronics
all have different attributes.
In the Chucky-esque creepy child category, there's Balloon Boy, and the wholesome-yet-homicidal
Baby.
For eerie, haunted circus ambience, there's the dancing Ballora and the clownish Marionette.
The fleet-footed Foxy and the unsettlingly toothy Chica are as menacing as any slasher
villain.
All of these characters bring a different scary skillset to the table, especially if
they get the chance, a la Five Nights 4, to go into nightmare mode.
Put a quarter up
One of the least-talked about aspects of the Five Nights series is the stuff that goes
down between the levels.
Since the first entry, the series has featured little interludes of simple, Atari-style minigames,
most of which seem pretty normal on the surface.
The happy vibe of the minigames stands in stark contrast to the pitch-black horror of
the main game, and also set up scares of their own when the games take turns that are unexpectedly
grim.
Haunted video games have often been the stuff of crappy creepypasta, but they could serve
a purpose in the Five Nights movie, especially if the film is set in an arcade that's open
for business.
It's against the series' rules to have animatronics stalk the halls during business hours, so
having the cloying kids' games take subtle, dark twists could be a great way to unsettle
an audience in the early going.
It's important to know that at Freddy Fazbear's, a "game over" really means something.
Home delivery
Five Nights at Freddy's 4 moved the action from a pizzeria to the bedroom of one of the
franchise's little guests, making it, by far, the scariest entry in the series, with the
monster designs going above and beyond the rest of the games in terms of sheer horror.
While the red light-green light gameplay remained the same, the sense of violation the monsters
caused went to a whole new level.
It's bad enough to eviscerate kids at the arcade, but hunting them down in their bedrooms?
That's just terrifying, and if it's done right, could make for the movie's most sinister scenes.
It's me
The series' biggest scares can come from the stuff you don't see coming.
One of the game's more unpredictable elements is Golden Freddy, a variation on everyone's
favorite killer bear that will occasionally appear with no regard to the rules.
If the player doesn't shake him off in time, the game itself crashes and resets.
The effect is truly unsettling.
Kicked out of the game and left staring at your desktop, you may well feel that the evil
spirits are loose in your computer.
The movie could emulate this by messing with the fourth wall.
Taking a page out of The Exorcist's book, the movie could assault the audience with
subliminal imagery.
Or, like in the sequel to Columbus' Gremlins, the monsters could just burn up the film print,
breaking out of the movie's world to jump out of the screen.
The Bite of '87
If there's one scene that Five Nights fanatics will be expecting to see in the movie, it's
probably the infamous "Bite of '87."
First referenced by the Phone Guy in the first game, this brutal animatronic attack quickly
became a legendary focal point in Five Nights at Freddy's lore, serving as the moment Freddy
Fazbear's went from a fun franchise to something much more evil.
"They used to be allowed to walk around during the day too, but then there was the Bite of
'87.
It's amazing that the human body can live without the frontal lobe."
Fans of the series spent months speculating about the nature of the fateful bite before
the fourth game finally showed it.
Players who reached a certain minigame were able to watch as a small child's head was
crushed in a pair of animatronic jaws, the carnage being portrayed in old-school, pixelated
fashion.
If the film brings this to life the right way, it'll both thrill fans and leave parents
everywhere wondering how they ever thought these games were safe for kids.
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