FNAF has opened up the floodgates of mascot horror games getting movies.
Mascot horror comes in a lot of forms. Most people think of games like Five Nights at Freddy’s or Garten of Banban. But, the genre is a lot broader than just costumed animatronics and monsters. Bendy and the Ink Machine, for instance, takes the genre in an entirely separate direction with its various popular characters.
With the recent release of Five Nights at Freddy’s as a Blumhouse film (a solid adaptation with some flaws, if you ask us), video game horror movies are now coming and nothing is going to stop them. Joey Drew Studios (the game developer, not the in-universe animation studio) has partnered with Radar Pictures.
Radar Pictures has been around since the 1980s, helping bring to life such classics as Jumanji, The Amityville Horror remake, and the entirety of the Riddick franchise. Considering that their filmography includes 2003's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and both of the original Bill and Ted films, the movie seems to be in good hands.
Bendy, for those unaware, is a game series that started with Bendy and the Ink Machine, highly inspired by games like Bioshock. In BatIM, players take the role of Henry, an employee of Joey Drew Studios, a twisted version of a classic cartoon studio.
Bendy is Joey Drew Studios’ Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny, and nearly just as old in their universe. He’s a little trickster demon who goes on short adventures with supporting characters such as Alice Angel. Innocent fun, right?
While the story and lore get incredibly deep in the games, it comes down to the series antagonist, Joey Drew, partnering with the Gent Corporation (a company found throughout the games) to make the Ink Machine work for the studio. The Ink Machine is, as you guessed, powered by ink. It also prints full-bodied ink-based characters from 2D sketches. Oh, and it might also suck people into it and turn them into monsters within the ink world. But, details, details.
Bendy co-creator theMeatly mentioned on X (formerly Twitter) that not only is a movie coming, but multiple new games are in the works for the franchise as well.
No real details about the Bendy movie are available yet as it was announced officially on Christmas Day 2023. But, based on the provided teaser image in the announcement, the sepia tone of the ink world looms over the entire shot, meaning that the game will likely focus on Henry, Drew’s old business partner and protagonist of the first game, as he is stuck inside the ink machine’s cartoon world.