Film / Willy's Wonderland

We'll be bustin' up laughin' (while you dyin'), cause it's party time!

"Put your balls on, Evan. We're going to Willy's."

— Sheriff Lund

Willy's Wonderland is an American Action Horror Comedy Slasher Movie directed by Kevin Lewis and written by G. O. Parsons. Produced by Nicolas Cage and Grant Cramer, it stars Cage, Emily Tosta, Ric Reitz, Chris Warner, Kai Kadlec, Christian Del Grosso, Caylee Cowan, Terayle Hill, Jonathan Mercedes, David Sheftell, and Beth Grant.

Stranded in the remote town of Hayesville, Nevada, a quiet drifter (Cage) agrees to work as a night-shift janitor at Willy's Wonderland, a once-successful family entertainment center, for one night in exchange for car repairs. However, his tasks suddenly become bit harder when the restaurant's eight animatronic characters come to life and try to kill him. Now, with group of teens who also found their way into the building try teaming up with him, he will be forced to defend himself until the next morning.

Willy's Wonderland was originally set for a worldwide theatrical release on October 30, 2020, by Screen Media Films. However, in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic causing the closure of theaters across the globe, the film was instead released through both video on demand and theatres on February 12, 2021.

American Mythology Productions published a Prequel Comic Book series about the restaurant, set before the events of the film.

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Willy's Wonderland contains examples of:

• Action Survivor: The Janitor, though a particularly implacable survivor veering on Action Hero.
• Air-Vent Passageway: How Liv gets into Willy's, via the absurdly spacious and incongruously clean ventilation ducts. Unfortunately, Arty Alligator is in there too. Liv firmly establishes her Final Girl credentials by escaping him.
• Alliterative Name: All the animatronics at Willy's Wonderland have names like this. Willy Weasel, Gus Gorilla, Siren Sara, Ozzy Ostrich, Knighty Knight, Tito Turtle, Arty Alligator, and Cammy Chameleon.
• Alliterative Title: Willy's Wonderland, of course.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: The movie is considered by many to be the Screen Media Films equivalent of Five Nights at Freddy's and it's not hard to see why. Not only does it star a silent, average joe protagonist who signs up for a job at a Suck E. Cheese's restaurant but he has to survive the night shift by fighting demonic animatronics out to kill him. Beyond just the basic premise, Willy's Wonderland has a dark and disturbing past much like Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, which in this case involves a group of Satanic serial killer cannibalistic furries creating the restaurant to lure unsuspecting attendees to their deaths and later possessing the animatronics even after they've already died, making them the movie's analogues to William Afton/Springtrap and the Bite of '87 respectively.
• …And That Little Girl Was Me: It's revealed that the little girl in the opening scene, who witnessed her parents being killed by the animatronics, was Liv.
• Animal Motifs: The animatronics are all animal-themed apart from Sara Siren and Knighty Knight. Most don't do much to relate with their specific animal, but some do (e.g Cammy Chameleon trying to pretend she's something she's not). And of course, the fact their leader (and most depraved member) is a Wicked Weasel can't be a coincidence.
• Antagonist Title: The movie's name refers to Willy, the ringleader of the murderous animatronics.
• Asshole Victim: Any animatronic that bites absolutely has it coming. And so do Sheriff Lund, Tex, and Jed.
• Audience Surrogate: Liv seemed to be our perspective and feel of witnessing the Janitor slaughtering the previously unstoppable animatronics.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: All three of the human collaborators to Willy's murders are killed by the animatronics themselves. Sheriff Lund gets split in two by Willy himself for failing him, while Tex and Jed, her two accomplices, are blown up by Siren Sara at the ending.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: The Janitor says not a single word the entire film and pretty much singlehandedly destroys the eight animatronics that have been murdering countless park attendees for decades past.
• Big Bad: Jerry Robert Willis is not only the creator of Willy's Wonderland but he's responsible for the deaths of countless families (children included) and transferred his soul alongside his colleagues into the animatronics. Now he and his partners are trying to kill the Janitor and the teens (including Liv).
• Big Good: The Janitor and Liv are the leaders of a group of teens trying to outlast the animatronics during the nightshift at Willy's Wonderland.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Janitor and Liv survive (and have formed a sort of parental relationship) and have destroyed all of the animatronics, ensuring that nobody else will fall victim to them, as well as all of the people involved with the Satanic plot all dying as well, but all of Liv's friends (including her Implied Love Interest) die at the hands of the animatronics.
• Black Dude Dies First: Actually averted. In fact, his initial refusal to put himself in harms way, compared with his more foolish friends, only ends when one of them tackles him and all of them accidentally fall into the building through the roof with no way out.
• Blood Knight: When Ozzy Ostrich strikes The Janitor early on, he cracks a grin. And throughout the film in general there's a sense he might be actually enjoying the Hell of the situation.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Janitor operates in a world of his own. He doesn't seem to particularly care that innocent people are dying to the Animatronics, with his main concern seeming to be to fulfill his job, drink soda and play pinball (to the point he's letting others face the animatronics alone to fulfill those criteria), but other times shows an altruistic streak and protects them.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Unlike the other animatronics, Willy Weasel's attacks on the Janitor was not because he wanted to eat him but apparently it was revenge for defeating the rest of the animatronics. After defeating the Janitor, he could've ensured the latter is dead by eating him but instead he left without checking properly, hence allowing a rematch to take place.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The Janitor is a very eccentric man with his silent, soda-chugging ways but he does his actual job (cleaning the place) impeccably, and that's without even going into how scarily competent he is in hand-to-hand combat.
• Car Fu: How Tito gets taken out in the final moments of the movie. He managed to escape Willy's Wonderland, but unfortunately for him, the Janitor encounters him again driving out of town. Of course, he takes the opportunity to hit Tito with his newly-repaired car, smashing him to pieces.
• Cavalry Betrayal: Sheriff Lund suffers a villainous version of this, overlapping with You Have Failed Me. When the Janitor succeeds in taking out most of the animatronics, she furiously forces him back into the building at gunpoint, and orders Willy Weasel to kill and eat him. Willy does show up... but then promptly cleaves her in two without a word for allowing his accomplices' deaths by the Janitor's hands.
• Chekhov's Gun: Early in the movie, Tex Macadoo tries to light up a cigar using a lighter which fails to work, causing him to toss it away near a bin. Later, the teens come to the building with gas cans to light the place up. At the end of the movie, after all the animatronics are seemingly destroyed, Tex comes back into his car along with Jed the mechanic, when Sara Siren appears behind them, using Tex's lighter and the teens' gas to explode the car.
• *Click* Hello: Sheriff Lund intercepts the Janitor by racking her shotgun in his face.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The Janitor is silent but also very clearly not all there, going by his strange quirks and priorities.
• The Conspiracy: Lund, Tex and Jed are all working together to feed Willy and his accomplices. Lund sabotages the cars of visitors passing by the town on the road by leaving out a set of her police roadblock spikes, letting Jed offer to repair them in exchange for working off the payment at Willy's. Tex, the owner of Willy's, locks the new "employees" in.
• Cool Car: The Janitor drives an impressive muscle car (a Chevrolet Camaro), and the whole plot is kicked off by him trying to fix it (and having to work at Willy's Wonderland to pay for the repairs, instead of being allowed to use a card or cash).
• Couldn't Find a Pen: After cleaning the bathrooms of graffiti, the Janitor returns to find "It's Your Birthday" written in blood on a washroom mirror.
• Creator Cameo: Producer Grant Cramer plays Jerry Robert Willis, the human form of Willy, seen briefly in a flashback.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Poor Ozzy Ostrich had no idea what he was getting into trying to kill the Janitor. This trend continues for most of the other animatronics.
  • The Janitor himself ended up on the receiving end of this trope at Willy Weasel's hands for their first round. In the rematch, the Janitor returned the favor.
• Dark Reprise: The main peppy, cheery "It's Your Birthday!" song sung by the animatronics gets played several times across the film, each time slightly darker and more distorted. By the time the climax rolls about, it's basically a nightmarish distortion of itself.
• Deal with the Devil: The staff of Willy's Wonderland were a Satanic coven who gained genuine black magic from one. Sheriff Lund and the other leading citizens of Hayesville, in turn, made one of their own with Willy, setting up a scheme to lure and trap outsiders in the restaurant for the animatronics to feast on in exchange for leaving the town alone.
• Death Glare: When he leaves in the morning, The Janitor lets Tex and Jed know exactly what he thinks of their little racket.
• Determinator: The Janitor won't let anything stop him from cleaning Willy's, and he appears to view dispatching animatronics as just a part of the job.
• Dissonant Serenity: The Janitor never once loses his cool throughout the entire night despite the death going on all around him. The closest he comes is when he screams and grunts in pain as Willy attacks him but afterwards he’s as calm as ever.
• Duct Tape for Everything: On the few occasions he's injured, the Janitor fixes himself up with duct tape and continues carving a swath through the animatronics.
• Due to the Dead: The Janitor closes the eyes and covers the bodies of the dead teens.
• Dwindling Party: On both sides of the equation: Both Liv's friends and Willy's animatronics start to dwindle in number as the night goes along.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Liv is finally able to see her parents avenged after The Janitor destroys all of the animatronics that murdered them, and her reward is to be effectively adopted by The Janitor as they ride off into the sunrise.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Sheriff Lund helped cut a deal with the deadly animatronics, and continues to sacrifice people to them without a qualm. But she took Liv in after she survived a night at Willy's, and saddles up after she's told Liv is in there. She even says outright, "It'd just about kill me to lose that girl."
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The movie is set in... you guessed it: Willy's Wonderland.
• Excuse Plot: While time is taken to explain the origins of the murderous animatronics — a group of serial killers running the establishment, only to sacrifice themselves in a Satanic ritual when the police came after them, transferring their souls into the animatronics — the movie seems to acknowledge how ridiculous the premise is by having our silent badass Janitor ignore Liv as she explains it to him, more invested in playing pinball on his break than worrying about the killer robots.
• Expy: Given that the movie bears a passing resemblance to Five Nights At Freddy's, a few elements are based on specific characters and locations from the game:
  • The Janitor is basically Mike Schmidt as he is a silent average joe who works the night shift at a troubled family restaurant and has to fight the demonic animatronics out to kill him.
  • Liv and the teens are basically the film's equivalent of Charlotte Emily and her friends from The Silver Eyes since they're both groups of individuals who investigate the mysteries surrounding the series of murders at a family restaurant with a dark past. Liv's backstory of losing her family to animatronics is similar to how Charlotte lost her father after he realized that the robot he programmed was his own daughter and allowed the other robots to kill him.
  • Willy's Wonderland is Freddy Fazbear's Pizza as both places are Suck E. Cheese's restaurants with a dark secret.
  • The animatronics of Willy's Wonderland (Willy included) are Captain Ersatz versions of Freddy and his friends since they're murderous animatronics who try to kill the protagonist.
  • Jerry Robert Willis is essentially William Afton/Springtrap since he's not only a serial killer who is an employee at a pizza restaurant but he transfers his soul to an animatronic.
  • The fact there's eight (mostly) animal-themed killer robots to fight recalls the Mavericks from Mega Man X which also features a chameleon, alligator and ostrich.
  • Knighty Knight resembles Yosemite Sam from the Bugs Bunny cartoon short of the same name.
• Final Boss: Willy Weasel is the last animatronic to fight the Janitor, and is the only one who managed to defeat him - In the first round, that is.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Listen carefully, and right before the stage lights up and Willy Weasel launches into the 'Six little chickens' song, you can hear him say "Time for them to go Knighty Knight!". The last line of 'Six little chickens' is "Whoops! Five little chickens at the end of the line". A few seconds later (just long enough to look around for danger and attempt to dodge it, if they hadn't been Too Dumb to Live) Knighty Knight kills one of the teens from behind.
• Foreshadowing: if you look carefully, in the very first scene of the Janitor, driving in his car, he has a set of dog tags hanging from his rearview mirror. Which helps explain his fighting skills.
• Groin Attack: Liv repeatedly whacks Tito in his cojones with the butt of a shotgun.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Willy rips Lund in half with one swipe of his claws.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Liv seemingly convinces Evan to do the right thing and save the Janitor, only for Tito Turtle to kill him before he can return to Willy's.
• Hidden Depths: Kathy is a walking, talking, bubble-gum popping stereotype of The Slutty Chick, but when the boys are tearing Liv's trailer apart to find something to get her out of the handcuffs, Kathy just kneels down, takes a wire hairpin from her hair, and expertly picks the lock on the handcuffs.
• Hollywood Satanism: Willy's Wonderland founder Jerry Robert Willis, along with his employees, used Willy's Wonderland as a front for acquiring unsuspecting victims to murder. Their suicides after getting found out were actually a ritual, which Liv claims was "satanic", to transfer their spirits into the animatronics.
• Implacable Man: The Janitor is beaten, sliced and slashed in a multitude of ways but it barely slows him down.
• Improvised Weapon User: The Janitor is perfectly capable of taking on the animatronics with his bare hands, but frequently employs cleaning tools and his environment as weapons. Best seen in the climax, where he beats Willy senseless with a taped-up broom and a sack of cans.
• Inexplicably Awesome: It is never actually clarified how The Janitor is such an awesome badass (particularly when the animatronics go through everyone else like a knife through butter). All we know about him is that he drives a muscle car through the US, drinks soda, plays pinball and he's the most unstoppable killing machine in a thousand miles radius (including the animatronics). The only hint given are dog tags hanging on his rearview mirror, indicating a possible military past.
• Info Dump: Liv and the other teens tell the Janitor the history of Willie's Wonderland in one long story. He isn't particularly interested.
• Ironic Nursery Rhyme: Willy Weasel sings "Six Little Chickens", a sinister little tune about six chickens in danger, which get cut down to five at the end. Immediately afterwards Knighty Knight kills the first of the teenagers with a sword through the back.
• Jawbreaker: The Janitor pulls a double King Kong on Arty the Alligator after he's claimed two victims. He pulls his face apart, like in the original 30s film and the 2005 remake, and then rips out its electronic guts, like in Kong: Skull Island.
• Karma Houdini: [[Subverted. Just as it seems Tex and Jed might get away with their involvement in the whole situation, Siren Sara pops up, improvises a Molotov out of Tex's car, and blows the three of them, and possibly the restaurant itself, to kingdom come.
• Karmic Death:
  • Sheriff Lund gets killed by Willy after trying to sacrifice to Janitor to him. Ditto her two conspirators who die by Siren Sara blowing up their car.
  • Cammy Chameleon gets killed by the Janitor via Neck Snap. This is how she killed her previous victims.
  • Knighty Knight gets decapitated with his own sword.
• Kill the Parent, Raise the Child: While she doesn't physically kill them herself, Sheriff Lund is responsible for the deaths of Liv's parents by sending them to the titular restaurant to be killed by its animatronic mascots. After her parents are killed, Sheriff Lund adopts and raises Liv as her own daughter.
• Made of Iron: The Janitor picks up a lot of injuries over the course of the film but none seem to bother him all that much.
• Machine Blood: Every time the Janitor lays low an animatronic, he's showered in blood-like black oil.
• Meaningful Name: The Final Girl is named Liv(e).
• Mid-Battle Tea Break: The Janitor will stop to drink his soda and play pinball. Even in the midst of lethal situations.
• Morality Pet: Liv is this to Sheriff Lund. When Chris calls for help, she hangs up; when he leaves a voice message saying Liv is with them, Lund grabs a shotgun and heads out.
  • That said, it doesn't stop Lund from actively abusing her, handcuffing her to a radiator with a bag of chips to eat and a bucket to use as a toilet. She might have taken mercy on Liv as a child, but the only thing she genuinely cares about is satiating Willy.
• Ms. Fanservice: Virtually everything Kathy does is sexualized. She wears an extremely short skirt and exhibits some cleavage. Not to mention the shot where she climbs the ladder to the roof and it's quite clear she's not wearing underpants. Strangely, during her death-signalling sex scene she's wearing a lacy bra with quite good coverage the whole time.
• Mugging the Monster: The animatronics think the Janitor is easy prey. The truth is they might be easy prey for him.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The Janitor's pinball breaks slowly become this over the course of the film.
• Mysterious Past: The Janitor's capacity for violence and utter indifference to the bizarre circumstances surrounding him seem to imply he's been involved in some very strange situations in his past, but nothing is ever made of it.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Kathy, who openly questions herself when she finds the room where Willy lured families to their deaths, as she realises that it turns her on.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: How the Janitor kills most of the animatronics. And Liv manages to escape from Tito Turtle by giving one with the stock of a shotgun, though he (barely) survives.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Siren Sara is proportioned closer to a human wearing a mask, as opposed to the other seven animatronics being large, bulky mascot costumes.
• No-Sell: The Janitor effortlessly punches out two of the animatronics when they block his path whilst dragging Cammy Chameleon's body.
• Nothing Nice About Sugar and Spice: Siren Sara actually has the highest kill count of all the animatronics. She's not only the one to kill Dan, but at the end she takes out Tex and Jed, though she's too damaged to escape the explosion herself.
• Obvious Stunt Double: Nicolas Cage becomes 20 years younger with a different hairline while carrying Liv on his shoulder.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Liv somehow managing to escape Sara Siren on her own.
• Off with His Head!: In a flashback, an unfortunate soul duped into the job is beheaded by Knighty Knight, and his head rolls across the table. In the present, Knighty Knight ends up on the receiving end of this by the Janitor via his own sword, as does Willy by the Janitor's bare hands in the finale.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Ozzy Ostrich, sneaking up on the Janitor. Instead of being scared, the Janitor breaks his mop in half to use as a weapon and proceeds to beat the crap out of the animatronic.
  • It's averted, by the Janitor not having this reaction either of the two times Lund holds him up at gunpoint.
  • Just as Tex and Jed are discussing the future of the now demonic animatronic-free (or so they think) restaurant in Tex's car, Tex spots Siren Sara in his rearview mirror and utters "oh, fuck me" just before she lights up the kids' gasoline with Tex's lighter and blows the car and all three of them to kingdom come.
  • In the final scene the Janitor and Liv are driving off when they come across Tito Turtle walking on the road, still limping and moaning from Liv's beatdown; he barely has time to look up and get a look across his face that just screams "this is gonna suck" before being run over and smashed to pieces.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Most of the animatronics including Willy Weasel employed Faux Affably Evil liners on the victims in order to unnerve them. However, as the Janitor defeated one animatronic after another, Willy's mood changed. When Willy finally takes action, he was uncharacteristically silent be it killing the Sheriff or fighting the Janitor. It was strongly implied that Willy's far more furious than hungry at that point in time, demonstrably since he killed Sheriff Lund dismissively.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Imagine being the parents of someone who drifted into town and were sacrificed to the animatronics at Willy's Wonderland. Your child just wanted to get through town and offered their services in exchange for getting their car repaired, then they are sacrificed and eaten by animatronics possessed by serial killers. One can only imagine what Liv's grandparents have been going through all those years, wondering what happened to their child and grandchild.
• Paper Tiger: The animatronics have somehow managed to kill dozens, if not hundreds, of people even though they move somewhat sluggishly, have no discernable supernatural powers, and turn out to be entirely killable through completely mundane means, like just beating on them hard enough. It almost feels like Sheriff Lund's utterly fanatical devotion to and protection of them is about the only thing keeping them alive.
• Pet the Dog: When the Janitor not only completes his task but kills the animatronics, Tex and Jed are overjoyed and relieved, keep their end of the bargain returning his repaired car. Sadly for them, they are quickly blown up by Sara after going into their own car to discuss what to do with the now abandoned restaurant.
• The Place: The movie is unsurprisingly set in Willy's Wonderland.
• Plot Armor: This is a given for protagonists, but the Janitor and Liv are egregious examples. Besides destroying the previously unstoppable animatronics, the Janitor also survived a beatdown from an enraged Willy Weasel, who is strong enough to literally tear Sheriff Lund in half with a single blow. Liv is no more competent than the other teens who are also Too Dumb to Live. Yet the other teens were killed off by the animatronics while she always gets rescued by the intervening Janitor in time.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Siren Sara, when she kills Tex and Jed:
  Siren Sara: Thanks for visiting Willy's Wonderland! Hope you had a fantabulous time!
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Willy, the head honcho of the animatronics, is also by far the biggest threat between them.
• Refuge in Audacity: Part of this movie's Black Comedy comes from the Janitor's far-from-normal actions. So much so that the antagonistic animatronics don't know how to react.
  • Ozzie Ostrich was the first animatronic who tried to hunt down the Janitor, and was surprised when the Janitor actually went into a fit of rage and attacked him in return.
  • The Janitor was about to fight Cammy Chameleon, but he received his alarm for his "break" and he heels it. Cammy was so bemused by the moment that she let the Janitor leave for his break and focused on fighting the other prospective victim instead.
  • The Janitor defeated yet another animatronic and was dragging the body along a corridor when he encountered Siren Sara and Tito Turtle. Most victims would turn back and run away, initiating the animatronics' hunting session. The Janitor instead approaches them and the two animatronics were so stunned by his lack of fear that they couldn't react in time when he knocked them down with a punch for getting in his way.
• Resurrected Murderer: It's revealed halfway through that the killer animatronics that the Janitor had been fighting house the souls of eight serial killers that also worked as staff at the titular restaurant, with the Willy animatronic in particular hosting the restaurant's founder, Jerry Robert Willis. Willis and his associates were part of a Satanic cult in life, and they performed a suicide ritual to transfer their souls so that they could escape from the authorities.
• Riding into the Sunset: The film ends with The Janitor and Liv riding off into the sunrise, having formed a bond. They also manage to destroy Tito, who had escaped Willy's Wonderland earlier, by hitting him with their car, putting a permanent end to the animatronic menace.
• Running Gag:
  • The Janitor will take his regularly scheduled pinball breaks, come hell or high water.
  • The Janitor having to change to a clean shirt after almost every animatronic he murders.
• The Scourge of God: The animatronics, for their part, don't show any particular predilection towards "people with vices" as the trope implies, but Sheriff Lund does. While commenting on the pact to keep Willy's animatronic gang fed with innocent victims she comments that they tried to only lure "people nobody would miss", people with "loose morals". This isn't elaborated on but as she says this we see two teenagers kissing and being murdered by the animatronics, so the dots are easy to connect.
• Seen It All: The Janitor's reaction to possessed animatronics seems to be shrugging indifference as if he deals with that on a regular basis.
• Serial Killer: The animatronics of course and the cult of cannibal Satanists they were before their ritual suicide transferred their souls to the animatronics. It's eventually revealed that they regularly left the confines of Willy's Wonderland to kill and eat people before the town's leading citizens made a Deal with the Devil to provide them with victims in exchange for staying put inside the restaurant.
• Serious Business: For inexplicable reasons, the Janitor adheres rigidly to the terms of his deal. He continues cleaning even after getting attacked by demonic animatronics. He always wears a Willy's Wonderland shirt and changes it whenever his old one gets dirty (usually with the hydraulic oil of the animatronics). He also adheres rigidly to his break schedule, drinking a Punch cola and playing pinball even when people are in danger.
• Sex Signals Death: What did you expect? While high, Kathy and Bob have sex in the 'Happy Fun Room' (where Willis and his crew performed their human sacrifices, and did their final suicidal ritual, no less!) and don't bother to stop when they find Arty the Alligator watching them. With some prompting by Bob, Kathy keeps bouncing away right up until Arty's jaws clamp shut on Bob.
• Shout-Out:
  • Liv, regarding the Janitor and the animatronics: "He's not trapped in here with them. They're trapped in here with him!"
  • If you can get a look at Siren Sara in decent lighting, she's a life-size, nightmare version of Disney's Tinkerbell; in her encounter with Liv in the forest room, she even asks Liv if she wants to see her treehouse.
• Skewed Priorities: The Janitor will clean up Willy's and will take his pinball breaks, no matter what stands in his path.
• Small-Town Tyrant: Sheriff Lund, Jed, and Tex lure people into the building to be fed to the animatronics.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: A lot of the movie is underscored by the peppy, childish tunes of Willy's Wonderland. The most evident example is The Janitor having a grisly fight with Sara and Cammy while the jukebox plays a version of Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.
• The Speechless: The Janitor goes the entire film without a single line. It's left unclear if he has some kind of speech impediment or simply chooses not to speak. The fact that he can scream and grunt indicates he’s capable of vocalization, at least.
• Suspiciously Apropos Music: As The Janitor is playing the pinball for the last time (right before the climax, as people are dying all around), the pinball machine itself plays a rock number. If you listen to the lyrics, it seems to be about how surviving the night at Willy's Wonderland is impossible and death is coming, which is a curious theme considering the song is meant to be In-Universe part of the Willy's Wonderland merchandise.
• Systematic Villain Takedown: The Janitor takes down and destroys each of the eight animatronics one by one. Tito is the only animatronic who manages to escape the restaurant, but he gets smashed in the closing seconds of the movie when The Janitor hits him with a car. Sara also survives her and Cammy's fight with the Janitor and uses Tex's lighter to kill him and Jed.
• Taking You with Me: Siren Sara blew up a car with Tex and Jed in it, and it is assumed the explosion killed her too.
• Token Good Teammate: Subverted. Cammy Chameleon claims to be this among the animatronics to Chris, only to kill him when Liv shows up.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • The teens fit this trope to a T. Knowing the animatronics are alive and murderous, they bring absolutely nothing for self-defense. They actually smoke weed while waiting for Liv, even though they're supposed to be finding an exit for her and the Janitor. They allow themselves to be distracted listening to the hostile animatronics' little song. They split up in a dangerous area, exposing greater vulnerability than before. Chris tries to reason with a hostile animatronics without any precautions taken. Worst of the offenders: Kathy and Bob decide to have sex, not just in Willy's Wonderland, but specifically in the room where the animatronics killed countless families. Despite being one of the main protagonists, Liv is just about as incompetent as the rest of the teens (though she genuinely does try not to be, and finally manages it by escaping Tito Turtle by herself through a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown with the butt of a shotgun), and Plot Armor is really the only true reason why she survived.
  • Sheriff Lund also falls into this. Faced with a victim that isn't merely fighting back, but actually winning against the monsters that have been keeping her town hostage for years, her reaction is to actually cling to her end of the deal and hold the Janitor at gunpoint. And then she does it again at the end of the movie after he survived her last intervention and Willy is the only animatronic left. Willy rewards her by killing her.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Of course, the town with demonic animatronics has a dark past. More specifically involving cannibalistic, satanic serial killers working in a children's restaurant and a pact to keep these serial killers (now reborn as demonic animatronics) from attacking anyone else in the town by keeping them fed with innocent passersby.
• Trademark Favorite Food: The Janitor carries a large supply of Punch soda in his car and chugs one during every break. In fact, it's all he's ever seen consuming. At the end, he uses the soda cans as blunt weapons against Wily and in the very final scene, he offers one to Liv, showing a bond beginning to form.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • Throughout the movie, Willy Weasel the Final Boss was seen with a blank stare but one can almost feel his anger rising as his fellow animatronics got slaughtered one by one. Towards the end of the movie, Willy Weasel stopped caring about the deal he made with the Sheriff and killed her. Then he unleashed his wrath on the Janitor, defeating him for the first time and even left without eating him. He never spoke a single word to the Sheriff and the Janitor during his rampage.
  • The Janitor's general demeanor could also be read this way. Instead of the utter terror most have when facing the animatronics, the Janitor mainly seems annoyed that they're interfering with his work.
• Undercrank: Used to excellent effect during some of the cleaning scenes.
• Villain Ball: The evil Animatronics got a serious case of this. Despite having the advantage of numbers and better familiarity with the place, they choose to fight the Janitor one-on-one. After the first couple of animatronics were destroyed, common sense would dictate that the remaining animatronics should Zerg Rush the Janitor and overwhelm him. But they didn't. Willy Weasel in particular was just staring ominously and doing nothing until the rest of the animatronics were defeated.
• Villain Song: The animatronics often break into song to taunt their victims. They're usually (and occasionally dark) variations of the "It's Your Birthday!" song, but the most clear-cut case is Willy singing "Six Little Chickens" to Liv's group as a way to taunt them ("Four little roosters and a couple of hens / Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide").
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Sheriff Lund and the other townsfolk, who conspire to lead human sacrifices to Willy to protect their families. When the Janitor murders several of the animatronics, Lund desperately apologizes to Willy, and when all of them are seemingly destroyed, Tex and Jed are overjoyed and relieved.
• Workplace Horror: A janitor just trying to do his job is being chased by blood-thirsty animatronics.
• Would Hurt a Child: The demonic animatronics will kill anyone, even children, since they contain the souls of Satanic serial killers and cannibals.
• You Killed My Father: The main reason why Liv wants to burn down Willy’s Wonderland is because her parents were killed by the animatronics when she was a kid, and she’s not going to let that happen to anyone else.
• You Monster!: Liv says this to Sheriff Lund after the latter handcuffs the Janitor, seemingly leaving him to die at the hands of the animatronics.
  Liv: Is that what you did to my parents? You're a monster.

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"Birthday fun for everyone at Willy's Wonderlaaaaand!"

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