The highly anticipated horror movie adaptation Five Nights at Freddy’s comes to the big screen and the streaming service Peacock this Friday, Oct. 27. Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) started as a video game in 2014 and quickly grew a large fanbase to become a multimedia franchise. The plan for a movie adaptation was announced in 2015, and fans have been waiting for its release ever since. The FNAF film is largely inspired by the game, so there is some information about the game and plotline that moviegoers should know before heading to theaters.
FNAF began as a terrifying horror video game, and the movie adaptation follows a similar storyline. The movie will follow Mike Schmidt (portrayed by Josh Hutcherson), a young man taking care of his younger sister who is haunted by the unsolved disappearance of his younger brother. Mike is desperate for a job and income so he can keep custody of his sister, leading him to accept a position as a nighttime security guard at an abandoned old theme restaurant: Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria (cue creepy music).
Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria is an old theme restaurant. Inside the pizzeria are animatronic characters, which I consider to be creepy as someone who was afraid of the Chuck-E-Cheese animatronics as a kid. The iconic animatronics are Freddy Fazbear (the restaurant’s namesake), Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy. The goal of the animatronics is to kill the security guard, while the goal of the security guard is to stay alive and make it to the end of his shift.
In the game, the player controls the security guard in an attempt to stay alive during his midnight to 6 a.m. shift and avoid the animatronics that wander the restaurant. Players track the movement of the animatronics through the pizzeria security cameras. The pizzeria has low electricity, so when power inevitably goes out and the cameras are turned off, players need to check the monitors for the status of the animatronics and hope the animatronics aren’t coming for them.
The question of the game is: can you survive five nights at Freddy’s? The video game makes players go through five nights playing as the security guard with each night becoming increasingly more difficult. If you make it through five nights, you complete the story and unlock an extra difficult sixth night. For those skilled players who survive the sixth night, a seventh night is opened that allows you to customize the animatronics’ difficulty level.
As I said before, the game sets the stage for the upcoming movie, so it will follow Mike the security guard and his experience working at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. Those flocking to the theaters may range from those who are deeply invested in the FNAF franchise, to casual fans, to those who are new to the franchise, and some who are simply going because they find Josh Hutcherson attractive. Regardless of which category you fall into, for anyone anticipating the new movie, it’s good to know the game’s background and story.
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