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Five Nights at Freddy’s finally has its movie. The horror franchise made famous by screaming YouTubers and lore deep dives has been a phenomenon for nine years. The narrative of these animatronic experiences is challenging to decode. Movies tend to be a bit clearer with their storytelling, leading to a much more digestible and understandable tale. Five Nights at Freddy’s hides many details, but its ending is still worth talking about.
Five Nights at Freddy’s Has a Lot Going On
Five Nights at Freddy’s adapts most of the classic 2014 original game. The narrative has expanded significantly since then, with eight sequels and several spin-offs. The movie includes elements from later games without requiring prior experience. Like the first outing, the film follows Mike, the new security guard at the defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The movie is weirdly cagey about his last name, but longtime fans will be in on the bit. We learn that Mike is a troubled man, struggling to make ends meet. He takes care of his younger sister, Abby, despite the condemnation of his greedy Aunt Jane. The premise is similar, but Five Nights at Freddy’s adds a lot of detail to the game’s story before its ending.
Mike’s little brother, Garrett, was kidnapped when Mike was 12. He believes he saw the man who did it. Mike tries to relive the kidnapping through dreams every night. When he starts working at Fazbear’s, his dreams begin to include five children who refuse to take his questions. Abby’s drawings, depicting five imaginary friends, suddenly click into place. Though Mike took the job under duress, and everyone else involved is telling him to drop it. Mike becomes obsessed with using Fazbear’s to find the man who took his brother. Along the way, he meets a cop who knows more than she’s letting on about the history and future of Freddy Fazbear’s. The Five Nights at Freddy’s movie has a slightly complicated story with a strange magic system.
Spoilers are Scary Too
I’ll unravel the worst-kept secret in recent memory. Matthew Lillard’s character, Steve Raglan, is William Afton. He killed five children, stuffed their bodies in the animatronics, and misled their spirits into killing any adult who entered the building. He then became a career counselor, guiding people into his death trap. Afton also killed Garrett, possibly resulting in a longtime psychic link between Abby and all of Afton’s prey.
Subsequently, she can communicate with Freddy, Bonnie, Foxy, and Chica. Vanessa, the cop who comes by to help out and keep Mike out of trouble, is Afton’s daughter. In the final conflict, Abby convinces the animatronics that Afton killed them. They turn on him, killing him with the spring trap in his suit and trapping his body. Abby and Mike go back to their lives, but Abby asks to visit her friends sometime. Where does this ending leave Five Nights at Freddy’s?
Put succinctly, the door is open for a Five Nights at Freddy’s sequel. Mike and Abby share a psychic connection with the animatronics. Abby appears to be the one person they like, though they did try to turn her into one of them. In the games, William Afton reanimates the yellow rabbit suit he died in. Future outings could depict his return. The other animatronics appear to have altered their personalities with Abby’s guidance. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 features a new protagonist at an improved version of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. That’s a safe assumption for a potential sequel premise, though they’d still need to keep the original characters around.
At the time of writing, the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie is on track to earn between three and five times its production budget in its opening weekend. That would make it the highest-grossing film with a simultaneous streaming release. Blumhouse is known for its cheap productions and massive payouts, printing money with minor horror films. I think it’s absurd to believe Five Nights at Freddy’s won’t have a sequel. We may see a Five Nights at Freddy’s sequel every few years for the foreseeable future. These films may come out fast and frequently as the early games did before them.
