Into the pit

 - Fazbear Frights #1: Into the pit. Scott Cawthon & Elley Cooper. 

A collection of three short stories: Into the pit, To be beautiful, and Count the ways, plus an epilogue. The first in a twelve (and a bonus 13) book series in the vein of Goosebumps and imitators (horror books for children), and presented as spun off the infamous video game franchise “Five nights at Freddy’s”. All twelve books are linked by the epilogues which form the story of the Stitchwraith. 

The entire Franchise has been and remains heavily criticized due to creator Cawthon’s repugnant morals and political actions. Beyond that, where the game has been often mocked for its bare-bones story and structure (even considering that it’s intended for children), this book series presents the curiosity of being intended for children yet featuring an unusually high level of gore, dismemberment and other similar violent actions. While also thorough omitting the very notion of queer people, to better fit said repugnant morals. 

In themselves the stories are formulaic or rather typical of the genre: All child characters express a certain wish (to have a fun summer, to be conventionally pretty, to be left alone) and all are punished in extreme ways for it. 

“Into the pit” has the protagonist discovering a portal to 1985, then paying the prize of his father being replaced with a supposedly murderous animatronic. But as the rabbit character doesn’t actually do anything menacing in the entire story, the fact that our protagonist eventually hangs him to death feels less like a valiant action than to hinting that we are following a budding sociopath. 

“To be beautiful” has, as far too many tales of the ilk, a young female character who is both relentless mocked by the very narration for her appearance (the very first words in this tale are “fat and flat”), and then punished for wanting to be different —complete with a lovely description of body bags filled with severed human parts. Moral tales at their most annoying. 

“Count the ways” likewise mocks our young female protagonist for dressing in the Goth style and daring to have a romantic idea of death (the story entirely glosses over the idea of goth boys), leading her to be dismissed as judgmental for not having friends and then ambiguously killed by a surprisingly chatty animatronic. 

In sort —delivers what it promises but for this particular genre (horror for children)… believe me, there are better options out there. 

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