“Good. That’s what I want. To grant your wishes and make you happy.”
Scott Cawthon, Into the Pit (Five Nights at Freddy’s: Fazbear Frights #1)
*This post contains spoilers*
Overview:
Set in the Five Nights at Freddy’s universe Into the Pit is a collection of short stories with a common theme:
Be care full what you wish for.
Oswald is having the worst summer of his life. While all of his friends are off at camp or on vacation, Oswald spends his time at the library and the local pizza place. Wishing he could have the summer of his dreams, he suddenly finds himself in the stuff of nightmares.
Sarah is really hard on herself. She believes that the only way for her to be happy in life is to completely change everything about her appearance. Finding a mysterious life sized doll that represents her idea of beauty, Sarah finds herself a companion that might just be able to give her the one thing she wants more. However, beauty is only metal deep.
Millie’s parents are off on another one of their journeys to find their place in life, leaving her with her collector grandfather. Millie wants nothing more than to have someone that understands her and believes that the ideal person is… more of a concept. What happens when Millie is presented with the opportunity to meet this concept and she realizes it is not ideal at all.
My thoughts:
Into the Pit: I expected it to be a bit more scary. I’ve never played the video game but from what I’ve heard, it is absolutely terrifying and eerie.
Yes, a bunny suited robot takes Oswald to a room full of dead kids for a second but they don’t go back or expand upon it at all. The next few stories are scarier, but this would not have kept me up at night as a middle or high-schooler.
My big qualm with this first story is that the dad appears to know that something horrible happened at the pizza place in the 80’s. If this is true, then why would he let his kid go there every day? Yes, they changed the name, but they didn’t appear to do any other renovations.
There is no way that I would allow my young child to hang out there by themself if a mass murder occurred; even if it was 40 years ago.
Also, that is the story I want to hear. I’ll have to look around in the canon to see if this is a nod to a known story line.
To Be Beautiful: The second story is the only one that truly embodies “be careful what you wish for”.
However, I found it hard to believe that a child would wander into a junk yard and take home a creepy robot. She kept saying that it was beautiful. There is no way in hell that I would seek out a life-size humanoid figure of any kind to put in my room.
And don’t get me started on the fact that it wants to watch her sleep every night.
You know that something is going on when she continuously changes overnight but the realization that she is getting limbs chopped off while she sleeps is horrifying. I thought it was just going to be magic like the first story.
The moral of this story? Be grateful for what you have because there will always be a murderous robot waiting to take your place.
Count the Ways: The third story really ratchets up the creep factor, quickly establishing that the main character is in mortal peril. The final two stories do a really good job of making you believe that the characters will somehow get out of their dire situations and then dashing your hopes with no regard for the reader.
I felt so bad for the grandpa. He did everything to try to make his granddaughter comfortable and loved and she just constantly rejected him. In the end she is punished but he’s really going to be the one that is heartbroken. After the loss of his wife, it is the absolute last thing that you want as a reader to happen to him, forget Millie.
One question I do have is can the bear kill people if they don’t climb into him? He says he loves killing so much but how often does he get the chance if it has to be that specific of a situation?
We end the story not knowing if she actually died but I read it as if she didn’t survive. I couldn’t believe that she gave up that quickly. I would not choose and hope that somehow I would be rescued. Eventually they would notice that she was missing and tear that place apart. I would rather do that then pick a way to die in hopes that I could out maneuver a demonic robot based off of a plan I had devised within minutes.
She also didn’t consider the fact that the robot knew things about her that she never shared with anyone. There’s a very good chance that he can read her mind or has some type of mystical power. How can you possibly think you would outsmart him when he’s in your head?
By voluntarily putting herself into this situation she is forced to reevaluate the decisions she has made in her life and then choose her own death to punish her for those mistakes. It’s a story of purgatory/self reflection especially because the author goes back between her about to die and flashbacks to her life’s regrets.
All these stories could easily be Goosebump age appropriate but there’s always one scene that pushes it over to YA. maybe that’s why is works because it gives you that feeling but then you’re taken aback when a bunch of body parts fall out of a closet.
This is advertised as a “be careful what you wish for” anthology but only the second story really hits at that theme. Into the Pit, Oswald doesn’t wish his dad would disappear, he wants a more exciting life and to have more money. Count the Ways, Millie doesn’t actually want to die, she wants an emo dude to make-out with.
I have seen some criticism about the fact that the character Oswald comes out much more empathetic than Sarah or Millie. There’s the obvious that Oswald survives and is the hero of his story by saving his dad meanwhile Sarah and Millie are brutally murdered. Also, Sarah and Millie are outright blamed for their misfortune while Oswald is just trying to have some adventure. It is very possible that this was just a coincidence that the two female stories turned out this way but it is a valid criticism.
Overall,
It is a collection of quick, surprising stories. Each story can be read within an hour and they aren’t scary enough to keep you up at night.
I would not go out of my way to recommend this to everyone but I already bought the second book in the series to see where it goes.
Rating: 3/5 stars
FableStoryNovel 
5 thoughts on “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Fazbear Frights #1: Into the Pit By: Scott Cawthon & Elley Cooper”