August 8, 2014, the release of Five Nights at Freddy’s, but technically the most important date in the game’s history, 1983. It all started in 1983 with the opening of Fredbear’s Family Diner. This new family-friendly establishment was created with the collaboration of William Afton and Henry Emily. Emily managed most of the business of the establishment, while Afton worked on pursuing his interest in building animatronics that would be able to function on their own. This specific location obtaining the original animatronics, Fredbear and Spring Bonnie would entertain the children, but eventually would cause one of the biggest events in Five Nights At Freddy’s lore, the bite of ’83.
The bite of ’83 was the most important but terrifying event that took place in the opening of the Fredbear franchise. The bite of ’83 is a reference to when Evan Afton, also known as the crying child, was shoved into Fredbear’s mouth by his older brother Michael Afton. Due to the animatronics’ interesting build and mechanics, the crying child, Evan, cried so much that his tears resulted in the spring lock malfunctioning and therefore decapitating the child which resulted in the bite of ’83.
After the loss of his child, William Afton grows to resent his other son Michael Afton and he begins to grow mad, but that is not proven until much later, but as of now, it’s just a theory. In 1987, Fredbear’s Family Diner expanded to become Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza which included new animatronics named Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy; but that is not the only thing that happened in 1987. The bite of ’87 is perhaps the most popular event in the entire storyline of FNAF. Like the bite of ’83, the bite of ’87 was the bite caused by an animatronic, this time, Toy Bonnie.
After the bite of ’87, things started to go downhill for Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. There was news coverage all over town of children going missing within the premises of the location. Eventually, as the lore deepens, it is proven that children were kidnapped by William Afton. Afton used the tactic of kidnapping the children in the original animatronic, Spring Bonnie a.k.a. the yellow bunny or also known as Springtrap, and he hid their bodies into the suits of the animatronics. After Freddy’s was shut down for good, the souls of the children possessed the animatronics and there was the beginning and the birth of the survival game created by Scott Cawthon, Five Nights at Freddy’s.
The player of the game takes the role of the night-time employee and must utilize tools to defend themselves against the animatronics and to survive and escape the five nights spent at the location. There are definitely more important details to the lore and more characters I did not cover, but this is the basic overview to understand what the game is all about. As the game grew to popularity, there were more parts of the lore unveiled by the FNAF fandom as well as more puzzle pieces revealed by Cawthon himself, but what most fans never expected was that there would be a movie.
Many critics rate the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie to be a 5/10 horror movie, but in reality, it does not deserve this ranking. Five Nights at Freddy’s is not a horror movie, it is a thriller and for being a thrilling movie, it truly deserves a 9/10. The movie revolves around a security guard named Mike—yes I know what you’re thinking, that may be Michael Afton, but in a way, it is not—working at Fredbear’s Pizza as a security guard. As he begins to notice the strange things happening around him, he receives help from Vanessa—yes, Vanessa from Security Breach—to protect his sister from joining the animatronics. Now, I do not want to spoil the entire movie, but the best part of the movie, perhaps the easter egg that gave most of it away, is Steve Raglan (William Afton) being Mike’s career counselor. As well, the cameo MatPat, a Youtube streamer that is very well known for streaming and playing the game as well as explaining the lore, made a special cameo in the movie. Although most of the lore in the movie is off, the movie is still great and still has many of the jumpscares from the game. Overall, I am extremely content with the production of this movie and I hope more of the lore is covered in future movies to come. As for now, stay safe from the yellow bunny.