About

The Walten Files is an analog horror web series by Chilean Artist and Animator Martin Walls inspired by Five Nights at Freddy's. It gained popularity in the Summer of 2021 as several popular YouTubers highlighted it in their videos. Shortly after, the series achieved significant popularity on TikTok, with users creating fan animations and cosplay videos.

History

The first episode of The Walten Files, titled "The Walten Files 1 – Company Introductory Tape," was uploaded to YouTube^[1] by Martin Walls on April 26, 2020 (reupload shown below). The video plays out as an old employee training video introducing a technician to a number of animatronic creatures for a restaurant called "Bon's Burgers," similar to those in Five Nights at Freddy's. Halfway through the video the content becomes notably darker and more disturbing as the characters watch an eerie videotape showing intercut footage of someone running through the woods, and being attacked by an animatronic. The video gained over 4.1 million views in a year.

This was followed by "The Walten Files 2 – Relocate Project," uploaded to YouTube^[2] on June 28, 2020 (shown below, left). The episode's description claims that the video shows footage revolving around a relocation project for Bon's Burgers. The video consists of various training clips featuring the animatronics, then goes into footage depicting three technicians going to repair them. At the end of the video, the technicians come across a clown animatronic and are attacked. This video also included a hidden link to an Unlisted YouTube^[3] video titled "Lucky You" (shown below, right).

On March 19, 2021, after a few delays, "The Walten Files 3 – BunnyFarm" was posted to YouTube,^[7] a nearly hour-long continuation of the series (shown below, left). The episode consists of characters Jenny and Sophie playing through a game called "BunnyFarm" featuring the animatronic characters. The game glitches throughout in strange, scary ways, revealing more of Sophie's backstory, and the two characters discuss Bon's Burgers. By the end, Sophie completes Showbear's minigame and he tells her about a "forgotten memory" at Bon's Burgers regarding her missing parents and the animatronics.

Like the previous video, it contained a hidden link to another Unlisted video, titled "Guilty" (shown below, right).

Characters

Sophie Walten

Sophie Walten is a consistent character in the series and one of the protagonists. Her parents went missing mysteriously when she was young, and her siblings were killed in a car accident when Felix Kraken, co-founder of Bon's Burgers, attempted to drive them home drunk. He went missing shortly after this. Sophie is shown to work at Bon's Burgers in modern times throughout the episodes, likely to get more information on her dad's disappearance. It is suggested she takes pills to repress her memories of her parents' disappearance and siblings' death, which seems largely due to the animatronics.

Jack Walten

Jack Walten is Sophie's dad, and the co-founder of Bon's Burgers. He went missing around two weeks before the restaurant's opening. It is implied he is haunting the body of the animatronic Bon.

Rosemary Walten

Rosemary Walten is Sophie's mother and Jack's wife. After Jack's disappearance, she was lured backstage at the restaurant by a mysterious voice, which tricked her into finding Bon and repairing it. Bon kills her and stuffs her body into the body of animatronic Sha, who she is implied to haunt.

The Showstoppers (Bon, Sha, Boozoo, Banny, Billy)

The Showstoppers are the animatronic creatures in The Walten Files. Bon resembles a rabbit, Sha resembles a sheep, Boozoo is a humanoid dressed as a ringleader, Banny resembles a rabbit, and Billy is a humanoid clown. Bon and Sha are implied to be haunted by the ghosts of Jack and Rosemary Walten.

Rocket

Rocket is a rabbit doll that is implied to be haunted by the ghosts of Sophie's dead siblings, Edd and Molly.

Online Presence

On April 24th, 2021, YouTuber STB9 posted a full cut of the series with all "tapes" rearranged in chronological order, gaining over 700,000 views in three months (shown below).

On May 12, GTLive posted a video of Matthew Patrick reacting to the first video titled "FNAF's SECRET Files? | MatPat REACTS to The Walten Files!" (shown below, left). This was followed on Jun 10, 2021 by a video posted by Film Theory titled "Film Theory: Follow The Rabbit… Decoding The Walten Files," garnering over 4.1 million views in a month (shown below, right).

On July 15, 2021, Nexpo posted a video to YouTube titled "What are The Walten Files?" discussing the web series and theorizing about plot elements (shown below). It had over 1 Million views as of July 20, 2021.

Fanbase

An unofficial subreddit, /r/TheWaltenFiles^[6] for fans of The Walten Files was created on May 2, 2020, gaining over 3,400 members in a year. The subreddit consists largely of memes about the series, as well as fan art (examples shown below, left and right).

The series also has a large presence on Tumblr, where fan art and memes are posted (examples shown below.)

TikTok

Around June 2021, The Walten Files started gaining a significant fanbase on TikTok. One of the most popular trends sees users dress in cosplay as various characters from the series. For example, on July 5th, TikToker^[4] @chatalot posted a video cosplaying as Jack Walter set to the Bezos I sound, garnering over 1.4 million views in two weeks (shown below, left). On July 19th, TikToker^[5] @hollowqxween posted a video cosplaying as animatronic Sha, garnering over 500,000 views in three days (shown below, right).

The original sound for the sound "I Like Bananas, Because They Have No Bones" is often paired with The Walten Files content on TikTok, with many videos under the sound referring to it as the "scary video" and saying they're not afraid to watch it (shown below, left and right).

Search Interest

External References