The Five Nights at Freddy’s Movie has been a resounding success among its fans, mixing in lore from multiple games to craft a compelling and—equally as important—cinematic narrative that stays close to the source material while still adapting it for an entirely different medium. Watching through it for the first time on its premiere date from the comfort of my own living room (thanks, Peacock!), I really appreciated how the film put a new spin on what’s become one of the most complex sets of lore in all of gaming (even if the critics didn’t see it that way).
As with any successful movie adaptation that draws its inspiration from another longstanding IP, a lot of people are already hazarding guesses as to what could be in store for us with the sequel. And since William Afton actor Matthew Lillard has already confirmed that he was signed on to a three-FNAF-movie deal, we should be stocking up on pizza and Fizzy Faz, since there will almost certainly be more tales from the pizza parlor just around the bend.
Here’s the thing though: as great as Lillard was in the first film (and he did promise he’d always come back), there’s another edge-of-your-seat villain I’d like to see brought to the forefront even more, and her name is Circus Baby.
Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner
The big problem with that, though, is that I have no idea how they’re going to fit her in there. See, if you’re not a diehard fan of the games—hell, even if you are a diehard fan of the games—the lore spread out across nine different entries can be pretty hard to follow sometimes, and that extends to the timeline as well. Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 is chronologically the first game, and it doesn’t even happen in a pizza restaurant. That setting technically pops up for the ‘first’ time in FNAF 2, the second chronological game. Most of the concepts from the FNAF movie, like the ghost kids possessing animatronics, were drawn from FNAF 1-3, which all take place up to the halfway point of the game series so far.
What’s more, she shows an innocent excitement for things like parties and ice cream, the way a young child would—the way the original five ghost children would.
Still, sandwiched somewhere in the middle of the original trilogy (well, by my best guess, anyway), we get Five Nights At Freddy’s: Sister Location, one of the first games to break the classic ‘stuck in a security room’ mold and take the series in a new direction. It’s among my favorite games in the series, and one of the things that drew me in most about this creepy little survival adventure is that it moved away from William Afton as its main antagonist and instead placed a big little-girl clown animatronic in that role. What’s more, Baby talks you through your five nights at not Freddy’s, playing the role of your guardian angel and giving you tips to survive against all the new mechanical monsters you’ll be trying to avoid… until the final night, when she promptly stabs (scoops?) you in the back.
Why Baby Is The Best Next Step For The Movies
The way she describes The Scooping Room is the most eerily chilling moment in the series.
Personally, I think she’d be a great addition to the cast of the film series. Unlike Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy, and Golden Freddy, who seem to be able to communicate solely with Abby through telepathic means (at least, when they’re not appearing as ghostly children in Mike’s dreams), Baby would be able to bring a fully voiced animatronic character to the movie series. Her character in the games is fascinating; she loves entertaining children and hates being locked away in the dark, and she conveys all her emotions in a beautifully sad monotone befitting of an AI. What’s more, she shows an innocent excitement for things like parties and ice cream, the way a young child would—the way the original five ghost children would. She even seems to show remorse for her horrible actions, yet she’s determined enough to see her plans through with as much ruthlessness as necessary.
And here’s where another curveball comes in. In the games, William Afton had three kids. The youngest two died. While he was, to be fair, a horrible person who got his kicks by knocking off little kids, the death of his young son and daughter were complete accidents caused by his own inventions. While his youngest son may or may not be the ghost child possessing Golden Freddy, his daughter, Elizabeth, defied his orders and played with Baby all one her lonesome, causing Baby’s secret killer protocol to kick in and make ice cream out of her in her mechanical stomach, ultimately merging Elizabeth’s spirit with Baby’s AI.
Yet in the movie, when nearing its climax, it’s revealed that police officer Vanessa is William Afton’s adult daughter, and she never mentions having any siblings, living or dead. There is a similar character named Vanessa who ends up helping Afton in some of the later games, but it’s more that he’s brainwashing/possessing her, and there’s really nothing indicating that the two are in any way related by blood. Even more confusingly, Afton’s oldest child plays the role of the security guard in Sister Location, taking the job under the pseudonym Mike Schmidt. Sound familiar? It should if you watched the movie, because that’s the same name as the main character! And while we don’t have confirmation that movie Mike is an Afton, I suppose anything’s still on the table.
All in all, the Five Nights at Freddy’s Movie makes an already enjoyably hard-to-follow (by design) video game and novel series plot even more messy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have no idea what’s still to come from this cinematic series, and I assume we’ll be seeing The Puppet make its debut before anyone else, but if I had my choice of which character to bring into the fold next, I’d be going for ice cream, because Circus Baby seems like a perfect fit.
Five Nights at Freddy’s
- Platform(s)
- Android, iOS, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
- Developer(s)
- Scott Cawthon
- Publisher(s)
- Scott Cawthon, Clickteam LLC USA