Five Nights At Freddy's: The Creepiest Thing That Happened On Set
The first "Five Nights at Freddy's" video game was released in 2014 and spawned a massive media franchise on the strength of its novel approach to horror. One of its core elements is its cast of creepy animatronic humanoids, akin to a dilapidated Chuck E. Cheese band come to life with murderous intent. The "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie that premiered on October 27 adapts these characters for the first time to the big screen. Doing so, it turns out, brought some real-life horror to the film's set.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Emma Tammi recounted how she sometimes witnessed firsthand the animatronics moving on their own. Each animatronic, Tammi explained, was operated by a puppeteering team, such that different puppeteers controlled a single mechanism each. On one occasion, she recalled seeing an animatronic's eye twitch. The puppeteer in charge of that eye claimed that she wasn't responsible for the twitch, suggesting the animatronic moved on its own.
"We embraced the quirks when they would do stuff that we didn't necessarily command them to do exactly," Tammi said. "We sometimes thought it was gold and used it, so it was super fun in that way, it felt like a real live element." Based on these comments, not only did the animatronics sometimes move independently, but shots of this happening are in the final cut of the film.
The Five Nights at Freddy's animatronics were designed to look creepy
Just prior to the "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie premiering, Bloody Disgusting interviewed Robert Bennett, who's credited as the film's project supervisor and lead designer. Bennett works for Jim Henson's Creature Shop, the company responsible for iconic puppets in numerous films and TV shows, including "Sesame Street" and "The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance."
Bennett corroborated Emma Tammi's account of the puppets sometimes moving on their own. However, he claimed to understand what caused this to happen, demystifying some of the on-set creepiness. "I know that there were several times where there would be a signal between one of the remote controls and a servo would glitch, and Emma would be like, 'Oh my God, that's so amazing. Can we do that again?' Well, we'll try," he said.
He went on to explain that the "Five Nights at Freddy's" animatronics were designed so that they could appear intentionally glitchy when necessary. Filmgoers, then, may not be able to tell the difference between moments when the puppets legitimately act on their own and instances when the puppeteers are in command of some of their creepier movements.
Working with animatronics was a uniquely complicated process
In an interview with Inverse, Emma Tammi discussed how requirements unique to filming mechanical puppets impacted day-to-day operations on the "Five Nights at Freddy's" set. Operating large animatronics, it turns out, isn't easy. "Getting the animatronics up on their feet and then giving them the breaks they need so that they don't overheat, or so that the suit performer has proper breaks, all of that takes up so much time," she said. "By the end of the shoot, we were a well-oiled machine."
Tammi went on to explain that there were distinct versions of each animatronic character designed to address the requirements of different scenes throughout the film. Some versions were entirely animatronic whereas others functioned partially as suits for stunt performers, allowing them to move the characters from inside. Certain incarnations of Bonnie, Chica, and Freddy specifically could even fit two stunt performers at a time. "It was a mashup of a bunch of different techniques, all of which Jim Henson's Creature Shop brought to life in the most exquisite way," she said.
Given each puppet's complexity, it's unsurprising they didn't always function according to plan. Fortunately, times when the animatronics would move on their own didn't seem to derail filming but rather added to their distinctly unsettling appearances.