Five Nights at Freddy’s ending explained: What happens at the end of the movie?

Five Nights at Freddy’s is now on Peacock as well as in theaters for a wild turn on the hit video games. But how does it all end?

Caution: This article contains SPOILERS for the movie Five Nights at Freddy’s. 

The latest horror centers on Mike, a troubled man whose temper has cost him a few jobs. He lands a gig as the night security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, an abandoned family diner notable for some silly-looking animatronic robots. The place was shut down after five children were murdered on the premises in the 1980s.

Mike has strange dreams he thinks show the murder of his younger brother. He’s aided by police officer Vanessa. A group of kids break into the diner, hired by Mike’s estranged sister as part of a plot to get Mike fired so she can get custody of his niece, Abby. The robots suddenly come alive and slaughter the punks.

That forces Mike to bring Abby with him on a shift, with the robots threatening him, but oddly kind to Abby. Mike realizes that the robots are possessed by the spirits of the children murdered years ago. Their leader, a golden-haired boy possessing the Golden Freddy doll, kills Mike’s sister and pressures Mike to give Abby to them. That includes strapping him into a torture machine Mike barely escapes.

What is Freddy’s secret?

After more dreams, Mike wakes up being treated by Vanessa, who he realizes has known all along about this place. Vanessa confesses she’s the daughter of William Afton, the serial killer who murdered Mike’s brother and the other children. She has been pushed to aid him but has a change of heart upon meeting Abby. She thus can’t go along with William’s plan to transform Abby into another of the puppets.

Mike and Vanessa head to Freddy’s only to be confronted by Mike’s career counselor, Steve Raglan, who’s been Afton all along. He’s been using the diner to lure in security guards to sacrifice for the children. A wild battle ensued with Afton using the robots to attack Mike and Vanessa.

Afton, clad in a suit of his own, stabbed Vanessa and ordered the robots to attack Mike. However, Abby drew a picture of how Afton killed the children, causing them to remember and then turn on him and drag him away with Afton trapped in his suit.

How does Five Nights at Freddy’s end?

Mike decides to keep this nightmare of an experience a secret. After all, who would even believe him? Mike leaves Afton to his fate. Abby is doing better at school, though still considers the robots her friends. Towards the end of the movie, Mike visits a comatose Vanessa in the hospital before he and Abby move on with their lives.

However, the mid-credits scene showed William bleeding out in a room as Golden Freddy slowly closed the door. The post-credits scene then had the cab driver who’d popped up earlier in the film waking up in his cab to find the creepy Balloon Boy puppet staring at him.

So Five Nights at Freddy’s was a wild take on the video game that leaves the door open for a possible sequel. Five Nights at Freddy’s now in theaters and streaming on Peacock.