Is Balloon Boy in the ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ movie?

Video game adaptations are all the rage lately, but not all attempts are equal.

HBO’s approach to The Last of Us was broadly praised by fans of the original video game series, and Netflix’s Arcane persists as a shining example of the narrative-mining potential that games offer, but there are far more negative examples than positive. It seems to be a hard standard to hit, if decades of atrocious video game adaptations are any indication, but fans are still holding out hope for Five Nights at Freddy’s.

The game hasn’t earned the best reviews from early viewers, but there’s still hope that it will emerge as a cult classic that translates better among video game fans than newcomers to the story. FNaF is certainly a challenging concept to bring to the big screen, due in large part to its unique antagonists. The story follows a security guard for an abandoned family restaurant as he dodges its increasingly dangerous denizens — sentient animatronic characters with murder in mind. Freddy Fazbear, the restaurant mascot, is easily the most recognizable of the animatronic lineup, but fans of the video games are hoping to see a few more familiar faces crop up in the film.

That includes a character from Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. Balloon Boy wasn’t an inclusion in the first game, which could restrict him from a cameo in the first adaptation of the series, but fans are still hoping to catch a glimpse of the popular character.

Is Balloon Boy in Five Nights at Freddy’s?

It would make sense to restrict the characters in the Five Nights at Freddy’s adaptation to those included in the first game, but its not uncommon for future characters to get a tease in early releases. Balloon Boy technically shouldn’t appear in any story based on the first FNAF game, but that’s not stopping fans from searching every corner for a hint of the character.

And they’re guaranteed to catch a few, so long as they’re paying attention. Balloon Boy doesn’t make a major appearance in Five Nights at Freddy’s — that is, he’s not among the film’s primary animatronics — but he does crop up several times during the film’s runtime. The first time viewers catch a glimpse of him is relatively early in the film, when Mike retrieves his uniform from his locker, and the second comes a fair bit later. Following the credits sequence — yes, there’s a post-credits scene in the flick — Balloon Boy makes his second appearance. I won’t spoil the details of his cameos here, but rest assured, fans of the character will get their fill of Balloon Boy teasers in the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie.