The director Emma Tammi reveals that a note from the FNAF game creator, Scott Cawthon, had a significant impact on the sinister animatronics in Five Nights at Freddy’s movie.
In a conversation with SlashFilm, Tammi shared how a message from Cawthon encouraged them to highlight the more innocent aspects of the characters. Tammi pointed out that, despite their robotic appearances, the children still retained their innocence, a theme explored in the film through their interactions with Mike’s sister, Abby.
She said, “One of the things Scott [Cawthon] emphasized to me in the early days when I came on board the project was just like, the animatronics are — they’re innocents. The ghost kids inside them are, they’re innocents. Of course, then they go into killer mode and that’s a whole different thing.”
She continued, “There’s this element that Abby is connecting with that is not sinister and that is pretty pure. So we were trying to find opportunities to show that as kind of the counterbalance to some of the more terrifying moments. It’s weird and funny. I mean, seeing huge animatronics do anything that’s normal, like building a fort with a kid or whatever, is hilarious and awkward. So I think we saw an opportunity to bring that out in the movie as well.”
The film is an adaptation of the FNAF video game series with the same title, focusing on a security guard’s struggle to survive the night while facing malevolent animatronics. In both the game and the movie, it is unveiled that the characters are inhabited by the spirits of children who were tragically murdered.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is streaming on Peacock.
