Jhon Cando, 11th Grade

9 years ago was the official release of a point-and-click survival horror game published by American video game developer and writer Scott Cawthon. Then began what was about to become a whole franchise of video games, books, and a fanatic community. Cawthon got the idea for the game “Five Nights at Freddy’s” based on criticism he received on one of his previous games named “Chipper & Sons Lumber Co” which reviewers did not enjoy since the characters of said game were frightening to the audience. However, they were not meant to be this way. It was thanks to this that Scott Cawthon had the brilliant idea to create a game that would have intentionally scary-looking characters and create a horror-like experience; from this came the iconic indie horror franchise, Five Nights at Freddy’s, jumpstarting the mascot horror genre.

Throughout the years FNAF, as a game series, was unbelievably loved by the horror community providing the world with 13 games and 4 official books to this date, all forming a story that was pieced together by the fanbase. There are many theories, conspiracies, and attempts made by the fans to solve the complete storyline that the franchise has brought along. Some have been canonized by the community, while others remain simply as theories. But, Scott Cawthon has never actually revealed what is true, which just has led the fans to come up with more and more theories. YouTuber MatPat creator of “The Game Theorists” has made over eighty videos on the franchise and almost single-handedly pieced the lore together.

With this said, it is no surprise to say the games ended up being material for a movie released in October 2023. While the first ever announcement of the making of this movie was way long ago back in 2015, the first teaser was announced by Universal Studios in April. This was due to factors like crew changes, drastic script alterations, and several roadblocks that severely delayed this movie.

Filming finally began in early 2023, and trailers alongside full-on marketing have been public to the whole world The main story of the movie follows one of the iconic characters of the horror franchise known as Mike Schmidt, the security guard of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, a pizza dinner that closed back in the 80s due to an accident that included 5 missing children who were never found and were declared dead; the corpses of said children were stuffed into animatronic suits, which they now possess. With the animatronics getting “a little quirky at night,” Mike must figure out how to survive five long nights alongside his younger sister, Abby, and policewoman Vanessa.

The movie is officially out after almost 8 years in the making, and is said to be “by fans, for fans.”

References:

Richard Craig (2023). ”Why The Five Nights At Freddy’s Movie Has Taken So Long To Make” https://www.imdb.com/news/ni64048065/#