Buzz
This Halloween season, audiences will be treated to a chilling new masterpiece from Blunhouse Productions - Five Nights of Terror (original title: Five Nights at Freddy's) - a horror film based on the popular video game franchise.
From the spine-chilling game title that took the world by storm
Five Nights at Freddy’s is a series of horror electronic games created by Scott Cawthon. The games are set in a fictional chain of pizza restaurants called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, where players assume the role of security guards. Players must monitor security cameras and utilize various tools to prevent terrifying creatures from invading the security office and killing them.
Since its release in 2014, this video game has immediately achieved resplendent success. Players find it difficult to sit still in a tense atmosphere, frequently threatened by murderous machines: Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy. These characters are the soul of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza and are designed to be both memorable and sleep-depriving. Players are constantly placed in peril, eagerly anticipating the moment of attack from the animatronic puppets.
With a relatively affordable price and easy accessibility across various platforms including PC, mobile devices, and consoles, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza is easy to pick up but difficult to master. With an engaging storyline, it plunges gamers into an endless, spine-tingling adventure.
Five Nights at Freddy’s once topped the charts and was played by some of the world's most famous YouTubers like PewDiePie, Markiplier, and Jacksepticeye. In 2020, a video of Jack Black dancing to the tune of Five Nights at Freddy's went viral on TikTok.
From a modest game in 2014, Five Nights has evolved into a global franchise. The first six installments of Five Night at Freddy’s (Five Nights at Freddy’s, part 2, 3, 4, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location, and Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted) sold over 4.74 million copies on Steam, earning $33.5 million. The game franchise expanded into various formats, including 20 books, 5 comic book series, even a cookbook, and numerous film adaptations, evidence of the brand's success.
Leading up to the first film adaptation
The game Five Nights at Freddy's has attracted a large following not only for its jump-scare moments but also for a plethora of theories and hidden lore behind the murderous animatronic robots and the haunted history of the pizza joint.
Before the first theatrical film adaptation, Five Night at Freddy’s was adapted by fans into various formats including editing, animation, and live-action. In addition to The Five Nights at Freddy's Movie (2019), Five Nights at Freddy's VHS (2019 – 2020) compiled 12 episodes featuring survival guides, gameplay rules, and excerpts from in-game role-playing sequences. Thanks to the audience's fondness, despite the game creator Scott Cawthon's limited experience with filmmaking, he also participated in producing additional short films such as Freddy & Friends: On Tour. These adaptations demonstrate a thriving fan community and affection for the game. With Cawthon himself writing scripts and producing, the film project's debut, Five Nights of Horror, in October becomes more anticipated than ever.
Five Nights of Horror focuses on the main character Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson), a young man taking on the role of night security at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a family entertainment center consisting of a pizza parlor and an indoor amusement complex. As Mike settles into his new job, he soon discovers something unsettling: the seemingly creepy animatronic puppets used to entertain families during the day aren't just robots. In fact, they're still alive, brimming with vengeance, and will kill anyone left in the building after midnight. Accompanying Mike is his easily frightened little sister Abby.
Certainly, nothing in this is peaceful for the night guard. Mike must utilize the limited resources around him to protect himself and his younger sister from the bloodthirsty robots and survive the torturous nights from 12 AM to 6 AM.
According to director Emma Tammi, the film adaptation Five Nights of Horror primarily draws inspiration from the first game in the series, but it also borrows somewhat from the suspenseful aspect of the Freddy legend. Tammi's team and the Blumhouse production company collaborated with Jim Henson's Creature Shop to create the haunted animatronic puppets. The female director states that the 'sense of unease' is what they aim to convey in the film's context.
Directed by Emma Tammi (The Wind), Five Nights at Freddy's features producers including Jason Blum, Cawthon, Russell Binder, Beatriz Sequeira, and Christopher H. Warner (who previously collaborated with Blum on Halloween Ends). Lyn Moncrief serves as the film's cinematographer.
FIVE NIGHTS OF HORROR (original title: FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S) premieres on October 27th upcoming.
