Will The Five Nights At Freddy's Movie Pay Homage To The Fourth Closet Graphic Novel?

The highly-anticipated "Five Nights at Freddy's" (FNAF) movie adaptation is gearing up to subvert expectations by incorporating lore that diverges from in-game canon, while also being a possible period piece set in the '90s. There's ample speculation surrounding the approach that the Blumhouse-backed adaptation will take, especially when it comes to picking and choosing the franchise's abundant lore to tell an effective, streamlined tale of terror. As most "FNAF" experiences are short and sweet, functioning as frenzied adrenaline rushes that intensify terror in brief bursts, the movie will undoubtedly have to adopt a different formula to satisfy expectations that accompany signature "FNAF" experiences. Perhaps it already has.

Franchise creator Scott Cawthon is intimately involved with the movie adaptation, having co-written the screenplay alongside director Emma Tammi (and writer Seth Cuddeback). Cawthon's involvement makes the adaptation truly special, as it is expected to carry the trademark brand of absurd, nightmarish terror that "FNAF" embodies. While the video game series has an explosively widespread appeal of its own, the franchise's books and comics expand upon the mindbending lore surrounding Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, and the horrors lurking within similar animatronic fast food chains. On closer inspection of the trailer for the "Five Nights at Freddy's" adaptation, a novel-exclusive reference can be glimpsed for a second, one which has never been referenced in the video game series. 

A very specific moment from the third novel in the "FNAF" novel trilogy, "Five Nights at Freddy's: The Fourth Closet," seems to have been referenced towards the end of the film's trailer. As Cawthon co-authored "The Fourth Closet" alongside Kira Breed Wrisley, could this be a deliberate homage to the novel trilogy? Let's find out by diving deeper into the world of "The Fourth Closet." 

There are spoilers for the novel and its graphic novel counterpart ahead. 

"The Fourth Closet" effectively offers answers to the central mystery of what happened to Charlie, aka Charlotte Emily, the protagonist of the "FNAF" novel trilogy, who is later revealed to have been murdered by William Afton, co-founder and owner of Fazbear Entertainment and Afton Robotics. The opening of a new animatronic pizza place in Hurricane, Circus Baby's Pizza, rattles the lives of John, Jessica, Marla, and Carlton — childhood friends of Charlie — who must get to the bottom of a missing children case. The gang must also contend with a now-altered Charlie, who miraculously comes back from the dead, and sports a completely different personality from the Charlie we follow in the first two novels of the trilogy. 

In their quest to understand how Charlie is still alive, the gang rescues someone who also looks like Charlie: dubbed Other Charlie, who is actually Circus Baby, Afton's humanoid animatronic creation who served his twisted goals of human-animatronic experimentation. After Baby reveals her nefarious intentions to the group, she picks Carlton up and reveals whirring saw blades once her faceplates open. Thankfully, Carlton is able to use reverse-engineered Illusion Discs to become invisible and evade the animatronic doll. Thanks to the graphic novels that visualized the narrative of the novel trilogy, we have a concrete idea of what these saw blades look like, which is very similar to the one shown in the "FNAF" trailer.

While this could just be a reference/homage to Baby that solely functions as an Easter egg, there's a possibility that aspects of the novel trilogy could have been woven into the narrative. This can very well be just a nightmare or an actual trap fashioned by Afton, who is set to appear in the film.

"Five Nights at Freddy's" hits theaters and Peacock on October 27, 2023.