Bendy and the Ink Machine (2020 film)

Bendy and the Ink Machine is an upcoming 2020 American urban horror film based on the survival horror game of the same name. The film is directed by Milton Colon and written by David Ortiz (making his writing debut) and Bookpast. It will be distributed by Indie Rights Inc. and produced by Fresh Cold Milk Studios, Kindly Beast, and Rooster Teeth.

The film has almost the same plot as the game, The film follows Henry Stein, a retired animator who returns to his old animation studio Joey Drew Studios from the 1930s after an invitation from his old employer Joey Drew, and discovers a nightmare of cartoon characters seemingly brought to life by the titular Ink Machine.

Plot
In 1966, retired animator Henry Stein receives a letter from his former employer, Joey Drew, asking him to return to Drew's animation studio and see something important. Having not worked there for 30 years, Henry finds the place abandoned but discovers an "Ink Machine" in the basement, installed after Henry's departure. He finds a tape recording that suggests Joey engaged in bizarre occult practices while making the machine, as well as a mutilated real-life analog of Boris the Wolf, one of the studio's cartoon characters. Once Henry fixes and starts the machine, he is attacked by a monster resembling the studio's mascot Bendy, as the studio begins to fill with ink. Henry flees toward an exit, only for the floor to collapse and drop him into the studio's lower levels. Draining the ink from several rooms, he finds a chamber whose floor is marked with strange diagrams. He hallucinates seeing the ink machine, a wheelchair and then the "Ink Demon" before passing out. Henry wakes up and begins to search for another way out, eventually reaching the studio's music department where he first encounters hostile ink monsters known as Searchers. A stairwell leading to the exit is overflowing with ink, which must be drained by flipping a switch in the office of musical director Sammy Lawrence. Henry learns that Sammy had begun to help Bendy to try to regain his normal body. Once the stairwell is clear, Henry tries to leave but is knocked unconscious by a now-insane Sammy, who plans to sacrifice him to Bendy in the hope of having his humanity restored. As Henry escapes, Sammy is seemingly killed by the Ink Demon, who then chases Henry through the studio until he flees through a door and barricades it behind himself. He is surprised to encounter Boris hiding in this area, alive and whole. Befriending Boris, Henry and Boris leave Boris' improvised safehouse to continue searching for an exit. In the studio's toy department, they find another ink creature who is a distorted version of the character Alice Angel. She leads them to her lair and reveals that she has been harvesting the ink of other characters in an effort to keep herself beautiful. Henry must perform several tasks for Alice in order for her to let him and Boris go free, learning from tape recordings that Alice's original voice actress became bitter when Joey suddenly hired a replacement for her - it's implied that Alice is her original actress transformed by the ink. As Henry carries out Alice's tasks, he must hide from both Ink Bendy and the Projectionist, an entity of projector operator Norman Polk. Henry completes the tasks and boards a lift to escape with Boris, but Alice forces it to crash to the bottom of its shaft and suddenly pulls Boris into the darkness, proclaiming that she wants to use him to fix herself. Climbing out of the crashed lift, Henry ventures deeper into the studio in search of Boris and finds a lounge filled with the Lost Ones, ink creatures who show no hostility. He also discovers that Joey had been planning to open a Bendy-themed amusement park with the help of famed ride designer Bertrum Piedmont. Henry enters a large warehouse filled with rides, games, and props from the planned park. In order to reach Boris, Henry must restore power to the haunted house attraction by finding and flipping a series of switches, one of which is guarded by a ride merged with the remains of a revenge-driven Bertrum. After flipping the last switch, Henry is chased by the Projectionist, who is in turn ambushed by Ink Bendy and killed. Ink Bendy notices Henry but leaves him alone, and Henry enters the haunted house only to find that Alice has turned Boris into a hulking beast named Brute Boris. Henry is forced to kill him in self-defense; Alice then tries to kill Henry herself in a rage, but is killed with a sword from behind. The wielder is Allison Angel, a physically intact and sane duplicate of Alice. She is accompanied by Tom, a wolf character similar to Boris. Allison and Tom hold Henry captive, but he eventually gains Allison's trust and she gives him a "seeing tool" that allows him to see hidden messages on the walls. After Tom inadvertently reveals the location of their hideout to Ink Bendy, he and Allison abandon Henry and flee. Henry escapes on his own and crosses a river of ink on a paddleboat, reaching a shantytown built by the Lost Ones. Sammy attacks Henry, having survived his encounter with Ink Bendy and blaming Henry for Ink Bendy's decision to abandon him. Unmasked by Henry, Sammy gains the upper hand and tries to kill him, only to be killed by Tom instead. Tom and Allison aid Henry in fighting off the Searchers and Lost Ones, revealed to have been only kept in check by Sammy, and Henry falls into the administration offices. Tape recordings found there reveal the truth about the studio's downfall; after the Bendy cartoons declined in popularity, Joey began looking for a way to bring the characters fully to life and installed the Ink Machine as a means to this end. The first attempt resulted in the creation of Ink Bendy, who was rejected as a monster because he had no soul, and Joey tried to use his employees' souls to create better attractions. This attempt resulted in the creations of the other ink creatures and the studio's bankruptcy. Henry learns that Ink Bendy has stolen something important from the studio's film vault and enters his lair — a much vaster version of the Ink machine than the one Henry fixed earlier — to retrieve it. The fear of being dragged again into the ink surrounding the machine prevents Allison and Tom from going with him. Inside, Henry finds one last tape recording by Joey, expressing his regret for everything that has happened and asking Henry to destroy Bendy. Henry finds the item Ink Bendy stole, a reel of film marked "The End." Ink Bendy chases him throughout the machine, changing his appearance into that of a beast which has been stated to be his true form. Henry eventually plays the reel, projecting a "The End" title card on every available screen and causing Beast Bendy to disintegrate when he sees it.

The film suddenly changes to a flashback in the inside of a home, covered in letters and sketches related to characters and events from earlier in the game. Entering the kitchen, Henry finds an elderly Joey waiting to talk to him about the paths they took in their lives. After Joey suggests that Henry should visit the old studio, Henry exits the house and finds himself immediately entering it, repeating his opening lines from the beginning. It is presumed that Henry, Joey, and all of the studio's employees are trapped in a time loop (how the loop was created is unknown).

In a post-credits scene, the camera focuses on a framed portrait of Bendy, Boris and Alice, which was a gift from Henry to congratulate Joey for the success of the characters (alongside a rusty Ink Machine sitting in one corner of the room). Just then, a little girl's voice asks "Uncle Joey" to tell her another story, implying that the entire film was merely a story Joey was telling his niece.