By MICHAEL GINGOLD
The director of a small-scale exercise in rural quiet horror encoring with a bigger and more aggressive franchise fright film: It worked for Lee Cronin on EVIL DEAD RISE, and now Emmi Tammi has followed up her much-praised period-piece chiller THE WIND with the highly anticipated FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S. RUE MORGUE spoke with Tammi about her adaptation of the popular video game.
FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S, opening Friday from Universal and Blumhouse and scripted by game creator Scott Cawthon, Tammi and Seth Cuddeback, follows Mike (Josh Hutcherson) as he spends his first night as a security guard at the long-closed Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. After learning of the place’s frightening history, he is confronted by its animatronic characters come to deadly life–created for the film by the team at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.
How was the experience of going from the period horror of THE WIND to something more modern with FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S?
I was just thinking about that last night, actually, because I was watching a period piece, and while FREDDY’S is much more contemporary, which I love, it is also a period piece of sorts. Our present-day timeline is set in 2000, and we also flash back to an ’80s and ’90s timeline. So it was really fun to step into those decades and feel the influence of those periods. So it’s a very different time, but the movie still is technically a period piece.
Similarly, THE WIND is very much a mood piece, while FREDDY’S seems much more in your face, so can you talk about making that transition?
You’re totally right—the DNA of THE WIND and FREDDY’S couldn’t be any more different. But one of the things I was really taken with when I first played FREDDY’S was the atmosphere and the mood and the patience that Scott Cawthon had created in the world of those games. THE WIND has a lot of mood and atmosphere and patience, and I did feel like there were elements that drew me to both, that had some overlap in that way. There is quite a bit of mood in FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S, in between all the action and in-your-face moments. There’s a potency in the atmosphere of the pizzeria that we wanted to make sure to preserve.
What was the scripting process like? The movie has been in development for a while; did you use existing drafts, or start fresh with a new one?
There was an existing draft that Scott had shown myself and Seth Cuddeback, back before we got going into the rewrite. He had a clear blueprint of what he wanted this movie to be, and which characters he wanted to center the story on, so that was very firm ground to expand on and further shape, and certainly a vital compass in terms of what elements of the lore we were going to incorporate, and what parts of the story outside of that we had the liberty to keep developing. It was very important to have Scott’s guidance on that.
How crucial was fidelity to the game, which has obviously been an issue in past movies like SONIC THE HEDGEHOG?
I think we all, and by “we” I mean myself and Scott and all the department heads and the cast–everyone was so focused on making sure we were doing the game justice for the fans. We were all pulling references from the game, especially when it came to the production design and the animatronics, of course; those were hugely important things to bring to life accurately. But we were also bringing them to life in a practical and three-dimensional way that had never been done before, so there was a lot that needed to be created anew and figured out and feel authentic to the FREDDY’S world, while also expanding on it.
There are some pieces of the animatronics that are kept away in the Parts and Services room in the pizzeria that were lent to us by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, so there are little bits and bobs that are fresh to the movie. But the animatronic characters are all going to be recognizable to the fans.
Is it more difficult to build a sense of mystery and horror around characters that a lot of target audience will already be very familiar with?
I don’t know if it’s harder, but there are certainly a lot of factors to consider that maybe you don’t when you’re bringing a totally original character to life. We didn’t want any of the animatronics to behave in a way where a fan would look at it and say, “Oh, that’s not how Foxy would move!” or “That’s not what Bonnie would do!” We aimed to stay faithful to the characters that the fans already know so well, but at the same time, as I said, we’re bringing them to life in a practical way that they’ve never been brought to life before. So it was all about walking that line of doing something new and also keeping it feeling faithful to the franchise.
What was your approach to guiding the animatronics on set, as well as the performers “playing” the creatures?
Directing the animatronics was a multi-pronged and multi-person endeavor, and there were different versions of each character. We had fully animatronic models of all of them, and for Foxy, Bonnie and Chica, we had versions where a suit performer would get inside the character, and then there would still be puppeteers off screen remote-controlling the arms at times, and always the eyes and eyebrows and ears–all of the parts that emoted. So it was a very collaborative process, and of course working with the suit performers to nail down the movement was critical. We tried a bunch of different things in the rehearsal process, and fine-tuned which movements felt the most authentic and effective for whichever scene we were in. And same with the puppeteers off screen, who were working things animatronically. So to get Foxy up on his feet completely, without a suit performer because no one could fit inside Foxy, required six people.
Obviously, FIVE NIGTS AT FREDDY’S has a young fanbase, so what was the approach in terms of keeping it safe for younger audiences while still delivering the goods as a horror movie?
It’s so wild; the first game came out 10 years ago, so the ages of the fan base now are actually quite expansive, which is amazing. You’ve got older and younger audiences and fans alike. But you’re right, we wanted to include that younger fan base for this movie, so we knew we wanted to approach it in a PG-13-friendly way. One of our lead characters, Abby, played by Piper Rubio, is 10 years old, and she sees the animatronics through rose-colored glasses, and through her, we wanted to create a sense of childhood wonderment akin to Elliott in E.T. and other Amblin-esque films that we referenced throughout this process.
But of course, we were also intent on making a scary horror film, so for the violence and the moments that lean into that territory, we needed to be cognizant of how much gore we were showing. The execution of those moments was what enabled us to retain a PG-13 rating, whether that would be showing a shadow instead of the actual body being mutilated or something similar.
How was the overall experience of collaborating with Blumhouse on FREDDY’S?
Working with Blumhouse was incredible. This was a challenging movie to get on its feet, and Jason in particular championed it without any reservations, and was persistent. It needed that persistence in order to get this project to where it is right now, and he stayed steadfast. I feel like Blumhouse in general have been real risk-takers throughout their evolution, and even though FREDDY’S is a fully established franchise with a huge built-in audience, it’s still, in and of itself, a risk within the horror genre. It’s a little bit outside of every box, and it is a mashup of so many things. That’s what makes it wildly interesting and unique, and why I love it so much and was so interested in doing it. It’s not their standard horror film, but they embraced that and didn’t try to make it something that it wasn’t. They let it be its own unique movie, and they smartly let Scott have all the input throughout the process that they knew this movie was going to require. That was an essential part of assuring that we were making a film that would deliver for the fan base.
In terms of just the box-office appeal, was it a relief when THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE did so well earlier this year?
[Laughs] I mean, that was an amazing moment for Illumination. I was excited for them, because I’m such a fan of their work, and such a fan of SUPER MARIO BROS. I don’t want to know how many hours of my life I spent as a kid playing SUPER MARIO! But to me, it doesn’t necessarily feel like a direct comp to our movie, so as much as I feel like, gosh, we should be so lucky to share a piece of the success they had, it’s not at all the same type of film. It’s a very different IP, it’s not animated; there are all these elements that are distinct.
But I will say, any box-office success right now, and certainly a game adaptation, feels like a success for the movie industry, and hopefully we can all just keep building on that. It’s so exciting that people are going back to the movies in big numbers now, and especially BARBIE and OPPENHEIMER having these real event moments that people could go to the theater for together and experience communally. It was so fun watching BARBIE with an audience and hearing everyone’s reactions in real time. I know the most fun thing about watching FREDDY’S is going to be seeing it with the fans, and hearing them react to things together, and then talk about the lore and the cameos and all the Easter eggs they’ve seen after the film. I’m just so excited that movies are back!
