The Five Nights At Freddy's Movie Is Borrowing A Cool Element From The Fourth Game
Freddy Fazbear of may be the leader of the animatronic nightmare party from "Five Nights at Freddy's," but Chica the chicken has always been my favorite. She's the lady of the group and her singing is a treat, but keep an eye on your pizza 'cuz she's a bird who likes to eat! Donning a "Let's Eat!" bib and a beak filled with teeth for maximum noshing, Chica's adorably terrifying appearance makes her the strongest designed member of the crew. But Chica isn't alone, as she comes with an often buck-toothed companion, an animatronic cupcake sitting on the plate she holds. Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria is a pretty popular place for children's birthday parties, so it's fitting that one of the characters would be in permanent celebration mode.
The Cupcake, aka Mr. Cupcake, aka Carl, is present with all forms of Chica, save for the 1980s Glamrock Chica, whose cupcake was likely decommissioned when she received her fitness-themed rebranding at the height of the home workout craze. Some form of a Cupcake animatronic appears in every "Five Nights at Freddy's" game, except Sister Location (as the game centers on different animatronics) or Pizza Simulator (as the Chica model holds maracas), and is usually presented as a sidekick or game enhancement tool.
Mr. Cupcake would disappear off of Chica's plate to indicate strange things were afoot in some games or exist as a fun and eerie prop. In games where the player has to fight Chica, looking into Mr. Cupcake's eyes can also help indicate where she'll strike next. But more often than not, Mr. Cupcake is just a cool lil' dude hanging around and looking mischievous. However, as the recent trailer for the "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie has shown, Carl the Cupcake is channeling the energy of his "Five Nights at Freddy's 4" counterpart — Nightmare Cupcake.
Attack of the jumpscare
In the new trailer, a group of vandals break into the dilapidated Freddy Fazbear's Pizza and start tearing the place apart. They break pinball machines, they steal quarters out of the skeeball games, they break open the prize counter, and they knock over towers of pizza boxes. One unfortunate delinquent investigates the kitchen area, and is confronted by Chica and her beloved Carl. Before he can even process the horror that awaits, Carl closes his eyelids to focus on his target, and attacks! The vandal is on the floor, and Carl's mouth (?) is open, nomming on this guy's face.
In "Five Nights at Freddy's 4," a prequel to the first game in the series, players have the potential to face off with Nightmare Chica and Nightmare Cupcake. Despite not moving in the first three games, "FNaF 4" runs the risk of a Nightmare Cupcake jumpscare. The moment completely shocked the gaming fandom, who had been conditioned to believe Mr. Cupcake was never a threat for attack. Blumhouse and Universal have even given the Cupcake his own character poster ahead of the film's release, which was at first thought to be a cute fandom in-joke, but now appears to have been an omen.
The trailer doesn't show Mr. Cupcake actually leaping off of Chica's plate and attacking, which I can only assume will be so hilariously fun that it'll be gif'd into oblivion. Honestly, he deserves it. No one messes with Carl. Ironically, in "FNaF World," the spin-off game that was released after "FNaF 4," a move named "Cupcake" exists, which is the healing move in this standard turn-based RPG game, the complete inverse of how he's presented in "FNaF 4."
Is Carl the Cupcake also possessed by a dead kid?
The lore of "Five Nights at Freddy's" states that the animatronics are only "alive" because they're possessed by the souls of children who were murdered by William Afton. So what does this mean for Mr. Cupcake? Did Afton chop someone up into little pieces and shove them into Carl's frosting mouth? Being murdered by a serial killer and having your corpse shoved into a singing children's entertainment robot is bad enough, but can you imagine being the person mashed into a buck-toothed cupcake?
While the "FNaF" games and books have yet to establish a canonical backstory for Carl (whose name was fan-given and later made canonical by game creator Scott Cawthon), it's been theorized that Cupcake is possessed by the soul of the dog William Afton promised to Susie Smith in 1985, as a means to lure her closer before killing her and shoving her body into Chica the Chicken. Afton would absolutely kill a dog. The dude has some serious problems. This theory also works because Cupcake is seen as a companion to Chica, and fanart often depicts Chica walking Cupcake on a leash like an attack dog. In the first 24 hours following the release of the second "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie trailer, that number has only increased.
You can see Carl and the rest of the crew when "Five Nights at Freddy's" arrives in theaters and on Peacock streaming starting October 27, 2023.