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This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.

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Nightmare Fuel / Five Nights at Freddy's 3

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Five Nights at Freddy's Main Nightmare Fuel Page
Games: Main series: Five Nights at Freddy's, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Five Nights at Freddy's 3, Five Nights at Freddy's 4, Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location, Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, Five Nights At Freddys VR Help Wanted, Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach | Spin-offs: Five Nights at Freddy's World, Ultimate Custom Night
Books: Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes | Five Nights at Freddy's: The Twisted Ones | Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights

As this is a Nightmare Fuel page, spoilers will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/springtrap_2.jpg
I ALWAYS COME BACK.

This time, you're in a Darker and Edgier horror attraction instead of a pizzeria. You'd better be ready, because Springtrap's still here with some surprises! Don't worry, Freddy's there too. Sort of.

  • The new animatronic, Springtrap.◊ He looks like a mix between Bonnie and Golden Freddy, and he has an absolutely deranged Slasher Smile. What's worse is that, upon closer inspection, there are holes in his suit which reveal parts of a brain and guts. And to make it even worse, it's the Purple Guy that's in there!
  • This time, the location is designed to be terrifying. Anyone who's played the first two games will be freaked out every time they see Foxy and Bonnie's heads mounted to the wall as lamps.
  • Springtrap walks up to your face, fully animated, when he's in the room with you. The technical improvement has potential to make this game all the more terrifying.
    • Another thing to chalk up to the tech improvements was how we saw Springtrap just twitching and thrashing against the wall in the trailer. Not only did it have the feeling of the undercrank shots of the animatronics in the first game, but the damn thing looks like it is in excruciating pain. He looks like he's getting an electric shock or having a seizure.
  • From the trailer there's a brief clip of the classic trio standing in shadow. Freddy and Chica are staring dead ahead... and Bonnie is instead watching the camera go by, staring straight into your soul.
  • The camera quality on the monitor is even worse in this game. That'll make it possible to completely overlook Springtrap when flipping through the camera feed. When the screenshot shown of Springtrap in the monitor has the effect of a "when you see it..." image, you're going to get really paranoid. If you miss him in one room, you're probably going to be totally screwed.
    • There's also the fact that Springtrap seems to know where the camera's fields of view are, and actively tries to avoid them, only stepping into plain view when there's no place to hide.
    • The air vents that Springtrap can use. You can be watching Springtrap, look away for an instant, and now he's suddenly much closer to you than should be possible. What's even worse is that one vent connects to your office, on the opposite side of the door you'll be watching.
      • It gets a lot worse if an error happens. If it does, Springtrap can come straight for you, and you won't be able to stop him!
      • What is even more terrifying is that Springtrap does not have a starting position, meaning it has a straight bee-line for your office on the right side...
  • The demo revealed a new game mechanic: you have to keep the ventilation shafts clear and operational or you'll start to hallucinate. What do you see in your hallucinations? Mangled and downright horrifying versions of the old animatronics and BB and Mangle.
    • Those hallucinations? Every single one is a Jump Scare. The animatronic appears in the room before rushing into the camera and going negative before fading. Scott found a legit excuse to use twice the jumpscares without interrupting the night.
      • If you see an animatronic on your camera, when you put down your monitor, they'll be waiting there for you, jumping in your face. But Mangle… doesn't. What in the world is Mangle doing in there?
      • When the Puppet appears — hallucination or not — it does not jump you. It simply… slinks into the room… and stares.
    • Apparently, seeing Mangle in the cam triggers it to start making noise as it did in 2, although it doesn't stop after you put the camera down. Oh, and 30+ years have not been kind to its voice box. It doesn't help that it causes an audio error, stripping you of your means of fending off Springtrap.
    • The minigames from the demo as well. As the Animatronics, you follow a purple Freddy. You follow the "Purple Freddy" to a part of the Pizzeria with a boarded up room, but when you try to follow any further, an "Error" warning pops up… and the Purple Guy suddenly appears and completely dismantles you.
      • Speaking of which, the sound that plays when he pounces on all the animatronics is gratingly horrifying. It also plays whenever you get one of the secret images showing Purple Guy inside of Springrap at the beginning of the night, where it's arguably worse as you're not expecting it.
    • The dialogue with the manager also reveals where Springtrap was all this time: inside a boarded up room.
    • Something else to note: In this pic◊, you can see the crying paper-plate doll from FNAF 2's "Party Room 4" (believed to represent Bonnie) above the box of animatronic parts. It shows up after the hallucinations end. But here's why this little factoid belongs in the Nightmare Fuel section: it wasn't there earlier in the night.
  • The game over. All you get is a static screen with the words "GAME OVER" on top of it. Nothing else. So what the hell does Springtrap do once he gets his hands on you? Considering who's inside it, probably a grisly death you don't even want to begin to imagine.
  • Based on the layout of the LCD map (it matches up very well to the layout of the first game), the boarded up room appears to be the Women's Restroom (the path to the north where the Purple Man appears is new, possibly the building's entrance). Judging by the leaking roof, the black stains on the ground and tables, and the rats running around, this takes place after the events of the first game, and the building closed down. This brings up two questions: Why was the room boarded up? And why is the Purple Guy still around?
  • It is possible, when starting up the game, to be met with… this. THERE'S A FUCKING CORPSE IN SPRINGTRAP!
  • That's explained in the post-Night 5 minigame, which features Purple Guy hiding in the suit, only for the suit's animatronic parts to expand, killing him and leaving his corpse in Springtrap. Watch it unfold here.
  • Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that the killer's rotting corpse remained untouched in the sealed-off room of the building for decades.
  • Look closer at the image: the Murderer's head seriously looks like it was split in half when the suit's parts expanded.
  • Tying this info back to the trailer: Springtrap's twitching could be Purple Guy's death throes as the suit tears him apart. Scott may very well have shown us Purple Guy's death without anyone but him knowing it until now.
  • Even more horror? Purple Guy's desperate twitching could be him trying to get out of the suit… and only making his death worse.
  • You know things are bad when something is so lethal that even the Fazbear Corporation decides to stop using it. Perhaps the above is far from a unique case?
  • The hallucinations are all referred to as "Phantom [Animatronic name]". Phone Dude's constant mention of fire risk? The older animatronics were burned.
    • That doesn't make them any less terrifying. They show up on your monitor one minute. The second you put it down, they're right in your face roaring at you. Luckily, it's not a Game Over when this does happen. But it means you have to quickly reboot the ventilation to get the hallucinations to stop. Which in turn gives Springtrap time to get closer to your office. Heck, don't be surprised if he's right in front of your face as soon as you put the monitor down.
    • Going back to their burned appearance, this is actually FORESHADOWING! They weren't burned in the original location from Five Night's At Freddy's 1, they will be burned in the Night 6 ending, thanks to the shoddy wiring that the Fazbear Fright Management insists on using.
    • And even if the Phantoms aren't directly harassing you, they're more than willing to spook the shit out of you through the environment. One minute you could be looking at an arcade room, the next Phantom Chica takes over the cabinet screens and looks at you from them in black-and-white.
    • Phantom Mangle◊ lurks behind the window and makes static noises before dropping out of sight. It's somehow creepier than the hallucinations that get in your face. What's scarier is that it is completely ignored by the game.
    • If you thought Phantom Chica was bad, sometimes the arcade cabinets may have a much smaller touch; A Phantom version of the series' animatronic Cupcake◊ leering at you from the dark in a very blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment.
  • The way Springtrap can close in on you leads to a lot of Paranoia Fuel. This includes seeing him peer into the window then ducking out of sight and actually seeing him run past your monitor when it's raised. Oh yeah, and like FNAF 2, there are no doors to protect you. If you see him peering into the room from the office entrance, that's pretty much game over.
    • Also unlike other games, you don't need to have the monitor pulled up to trigger him coming through. Move the camera off him for a second or wait until you black out, and he will just come in anyway.
  • The ending shows the murderer getting his comeuppance from the ghosts of the children. The thing is, if you actually look at the condition of the pizzeria in the scene, it looks like it's in horrible shape, as if it had been closed down for years, with rats everywhere. And before you enter the room where the murderer is found, you see the remains of the animatronic suits. This heavily implies that the murderer was not killed himself until years after the events of the other two games. For reasons unknown, the murderer returned to the scene of his old crime, was chased into Springtrap, and left there for dead by the ghosts… who had the good sense to seal up the room afterwards, so that the corpse-bearing animatronic, even if it reanimated like the others had, would be locked away forever. And then the management came along...
    • That may be the reason why the other animatronics are no longer hunting you: After getting their revenge, the ghosts of the children are finally at peace.
    • This brings new meaning to the words I AM STILL HERE. The cutscenes imply that, after Freddy's closed down, the murderer came back to destroy the animatronics. Either he wanted to collect mementos of his crimes, or he wanted to destroy the evidence of what he had done years ago. After all, with management no longer hushing things up, it was just a matter of time before someone bought the building, found the animatronics, and opened them up, revealing the children's corpses. However, after succeeding, the ghosts of the children emerged and chased him into Springtrap. However, unlike the children, who could find peace when their killer was himself killed, the murderer himself is trapped inside of Springtrap, since there's no one for him to claim revenge on: He's trapped forever in that suit, and even the pizzeria burning down won't be enough to set him free. No wonder he's mad…
    • Think about this: when the Murderer gets into the suit and thinks he's safe, he goes from terrified panic… to laughing at the ghosts of his victims. Is it relief he's safe? Or glee at having regained control of the situation? Or mocking his victims now that he's in a golden suit just like when he killed them? Or laughing because he knows the spring locks in the suit will kill him before the children can get a hold of him? It's just… unsettling.
  • The layout of the office. For the first time in the series, you can't see the entire room from your position. All you have is a door and a window, and the monitors are perfectly positioned to block your view of bothnote . So if an animatronic sneaks into your office, you won't be able to know until you look to the door.
  • The in-between night cutscenes. After Night 1, you take control of Freddy and follow some sort of purple animatronic. There's a point where you can't move anywhere, and then when you don't know what to do, the PURPLE GUY COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND DESTROYS YOU!
    • Rarely, he may also come out of nowhere even before you get to the position. If you are used to the normal way, this will startle you.
    • This is severely downgraded later, beacuse you take control of another one of the original four animatronics at the end of each night, and you can expect the exact same thing. It gets to a point where, when you get to the cutscene after Night 4 where you play as Foxy, you're not afraid of it.
  • Just... everything about the hybrid suits, which sound like something that came straight out of Saw. To clarify, you have to crank an animatronic to the sides until you can fit your whole body into the suit. BUT. From what we hear from the Phone Guy, the mechanisms that hold the animatronic in place are terribly inept, coming apart if you so much as breathe on them (Not Hyperbole, the moisture loosens them). So, at any goddamn moment the locks could come loose and your body would be completely crushed by the animatronic parts. And people actually used them... up until a malfunction forced them to retire the suits.
  • Imagine the perspective of the final minigame from the Murderer's POV. You're in a room, surrounded by the ghosts of your victims, who are crying. They're getting closer and closer and there's no escape. You're freaking out, screaming at them. You find that old suit you can hide in and you laugh in triumph… but then, you feel severe pain stabbing your body, spikes impaling you, something beginning to crack your face in half, you start thrashing around, screaming, trying to take the suit off as a shower of blood, bone and assorted flesh escapes, but it only makes the already burning pain worse, until you're reduced to sitting against a wall, twitching as you bleed out in horrific agony, wishing for death to come claim you quicker. While you probably deserved it in the first place, it is still a horrifying fate.
    • One fan generously created this audio adaptation of the final minigame,note  something we all wanted to hear. It is an absolutely horrific depiction of what happened to the Purple Man when he climbed inside. The gurgling, the coughing and screaming, and the sickening cracking of what is implied to be his bones... Jesus Christ.
      • If you listen closely, you can hear this: "H... help! Somebody... GET IT OFF!!!"
      • As if the audio adaptation isn't enough, now there's an animated version of the death scene. Not pleasant to look at. This is the link to the video.
      • The worst part is that this version would actually be unrealistic! What would realistically happen is that immediately when the spring locks go off, your vocal cords would be crushed and your lungs would get impaled, crushed, and lots of other bad things, so a more accurate version would be a quick, loud yelp, followed by nauseating gurgling as Purple Guy drowns to death in his own blood. The worst part is that he would literally be unable to even try to call for help.
      • You want a more realistic portrayal? Here's another audio recreation, this time with subtitles to explain in detail what's happening as the poor sap inside gets turned to mincemeat.note  And by the detailed notes given in the description, this isn't even Purple Guy; it was a regular employee, in the incident that got them decommissioned in the first place.
      • You might think Purple Guy deserved to die the way he did. Fair enough. But then you remember Phone Guy says an unfortunate accident at a sister location made the spring suits be recalled. He says they are not to be worn under any circumstances. Which implies that what happened to Purple Guy happened before to an employee who was most likely completely innocent and who was just doing his/her job. Now watch any of the two videos mentioned above again with this in mind. Still satisfied to see and hear that?
  • Whatever… this is. You play as... the Killer? Shadow Bonnie? Something else? And all you can do is float around, in a horrifying glitched manner. Sometimes, the room changes to look like another minigame. Sometimes it changes to a purple box, over a purple background, and off to the side is a crying child. What is this? What does it mean? Perhaps no one can say for certain. But yet… the soundtrack almost makes it seem kind of… sad, in a way.
    • The meaning has been discovered: The crying child is important for getting the good ending.
  • Brightening the newspaper in the ending reveals this◊. Springtrap is still alive.
  • Compare the images of the good ending and the bad ending: Both show the animatronic heads. In the bad ending, lights will be in the head, but in the good ending, the lights will be off. The scary part? Getting the bad ending is the only way you'll see the fifth head in the back.
  • There's just something inherently terrifying about The Reveal that it's not the same vengeful children from the first two games after you, but the ghost of a psychotic Serial Killer. It's just unnerving to realize you've been alone with a child murderer… and then you start thinking about some of the traits Springtrap shows, and realize how much sense it makes.
  • Some have said that Springtrap's more casual kill scenes are Nightmare Retardant, but one thing that might just reverse that? Remember the Purple Guy's personality: always smiling, never moving fast, and in the one murder we actually directly see him commit, standing there next to the crying child with a smile on his face, letting the realization of what is about to happen sink in. Suddenly, his casual demeanor takes on a much more frightening subtext, doesn't it?
    • Furthermore, on his left-side jumpscare, he "widens" his eyes as he approaches you and that's the only time he does that. It gives an impression that his permanent grin was somehow growing even bigger. It seems funny until you realize that this is exactly why it's terrifying.
    • That's not to say his right-side jumpscare isn't any better. On that one, he opens his mouth, which is terrifying already, but now you can see the corpse of the Purple Man within!◊
    • On rare occasions, if he's at the doorstep and you're looking at the camera monitor, he may get bored of waiting until you look at it. So, he'll cross the Office and force the monitor down. That's normal animatronic duty, right? Except that these monitors don't fill the screen completely, so you get to see him with the corner of your eye. Even worse? He's as fast as Foxy when he does so, but he's also absolutely silent.
  • Those swift and strong, vengeful animatronics that can stuff you into a suit against your will? The Purple Man dismantled them all, by himself. And this is, in fact, what you're up against…
  • Along with the crying Bonnie paper doll, it's entirely possible for what appears to be Golden/Shadow Freddy to appear in your office, next to the doorway, still slumped over.
    • Luckily, he can no longer attack or exit the game. So he's more of an easter egg than anything.
  • Look at the Puppet when it appears in the hall.◊ It doesn't look anything like its Phantom version,◊ and... is that a reflection on the floor?
    "It was always... thinking, and it can go anywhere."
  • If you experience a ventilation error, there's a chance you'll see a rather frightening hallucination of several Springtrap clones scattered across the building. And only one is the true one. And you can't figure out which one it is.
  • As of the newest update, Springtrap now has a new soundbyte that may play whenever he's moving. Sometimes, they're just simple foot steps. Other times, however, they sound like a deep, reverberating moaning. It's...creepy, to say the least.
    • Worse still is what can potentially be deciphered from the moans.
      Help... me...
  • Do you remember those times in the first game where posters would change over the night? Well, guess who can◊ do that too◊?
  • Let's say that you're watching the cams and rebooting the systems, but suddenly, in the corner in your office...◊
  • Beyond everything, this game takes the horror of the others and puts a new spin on it; before you were dealing with scared angry children given vague supernatural abilities. Now, you're dealing with an adult, a very angry and cruel adult, one who's figured out all the scare illusion powers of the kids, which took them years, in as little as a few months depending on when he died. What on earth would he learn how to do if given a few YEARS to practice?
  • While most of the animatronics' FNAF World designs are cutesy and not unsettling in the slightest (even the creepy Phantoms and nightmarish... well, Nightmares are chubby, big-eyed, and adorable), the Phantom Puppet's appearance in the promo images reveal an unnerving detail about the character that is never seen in-game: it has teeth. There is no reason for a puppet who — during the daytime, anyway — does nothing except emerge from a gift box and give children presents to have teeth like that. They're just... there. Someone in management felt it was necessary to give an already off-putting puppet realistic teeth in-between the second game and the character's eventual retirement.
  • On the anniversary of the first FNAF game, Scott put up a bunch of renders on his website. Most of them were of the animatronics or the various offices in the series, but for the last one, we get a lovely look of Purple Guy's true remains. We see his red, mummified head positioned just as in the game proper (eyes pushed out, mouth speared open)....and if you look down, you see that his skin has been shredded to ribbons, and whatever is left of his organs and muscle has been tangled around the center of the endoskeleton or squished between its sections, completely indistinguishable from each other. How in the WORLD did that suit accomplish THIS?
    • Worse, it seems as if all that's left is his skull. Every single other bone in his body is just... gone, and all that's left is his organs, and small figments of muscle tissue. If he were sealed for any longer than 30 years, then his corpse would have been rotted away from the suit completely!
    • We got another image◊ from the third anniversary, and while Springtrap's gesture softens the blow, it still shows a little more of what he is under that suit: flesh interlaced with metal and wires.
  • Losing Springtrap as a whole, really. He camouflages perfectly within the location, and in the middle of looking for him, you might get a surprise from Phantom Chica, Mangle, Puppet or Balloon Boy, and maybe even Phantom Foxy if you're looking for him too long. And that's not counting all the errors that will pop up simply because you use the cameras. Rebooting them will give Springtrap time to get closer to you, and you can hear him walking, moaning and crawling through the vents. It's full of Paranoia Fuel.
He will come back. He always does.

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