Movies - TV
One Twilight Zone Story Will Feel Familiar To Five Nights At Freddy’s Fans
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
A 1960 episode of “The Twilight Zone” foreshadowed the horror themes later embraced by the popular video game “Five Nights at Freddy's" and its film adaptation.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s” features a pizza chain with a band made up of animatronic animals that become bloodthirsty murderers haunted by the ghosts of children who died there.
A fear of fake people, animatronics, and mannequins goes back decades prior to the inception of "Five Nights at Freddy's,” like in the “Twilight Zone” episode “The After Hours.”
In the episode, Anne Francis stars as a fashionable woman named Marsha in a department store shopping for a thimble. She is taken to the ninth floor of the building to find it.
Oddly, the building only has eight floors ordinarily accessed by the public. She tries to complain about the situation, but everyone in the elevator transforms into mannequins.
The ending reveals that Marsha is a mannequin herself. Every month, a living mannequin from the department store is allowed to leave the store and live like a human for a spell.
The episode contributed to the rich legacy of “The Twilight Zone” and its impact on horror storytelling, paving the way for modern interpretations like “Five Nights at Freddy's.”