“Five Nights At Freddy’s”, is the hit game series that has captured the eyes of every scared 10 year old in the mid 2010’s. While the series may appear confusing, thanks to all its lore and strange subject matter, it has attempted to cross over to the mainstream with their newest film. Does it live up to the source material? Does it appeal to a general audience? Does it bother to answer any questions about this confusing lore?
The basic premise of the movie, starring Mike Schmidt, (played by Josh Hutcherson) follows the main character as he tries to care for his little sister Abby (played by Piper Rubio). He applies for the job of a night guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, but things aren’t as they seem, as the animatronics start mysteriously going rogue and attempt to kill Mike and all others who enter the establishment.
Overall, I have mixed feelings about this movie. As someone who’s a long time fan of the franchise, I would say it’s a solid movie, especially with the many easter eggs and references to both the games and the fans. But as a general movie goer, I feel like it lacked in some areas, like the horror aspect. Despite having some interesting potential, I feel like it was mostly executed too safely, as the scares were little, nothing but obvious jump scares and a semi creepy atmosphere. The tone created wavered back and forth between attempting to lure a teenage audience yet catering to a kids audience at the same time. Focal points such as gruesome topics like child murders, results in a lack of meaningful presentation of the plot, thus making numerous points easily forgettable until the end.
One of the biggest problems by far is its reliance on the source material. If you have no idea what “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is, or its confusing lore beforehand, then much of this movie isn’t going to make sense. The worst example of this is when they have a really major reveal involving one of the game characters, which I as a fan was excited for. However, they never bother to foreshadow or give them any sort of agency. He just gets mentioned, immediately shows up, and that’s it.
On a lighter note, the production design was really impressive and the animatronics were accurate to the source material. In the age of using CGI on almost all complex creature designs, it’s nice knowing they committed to it, albeit with the drawback that the animatronics don’t always look menacing in motion.
For my overall verdict, do I think it’s a terrible movie? No, but I do think it lacked in some areas. With a greater emphasis on the horror and more of an attempt to be a self-contained narrative, it would have done an amazing job bringing many childhood fears back to life. But as it is, it’s still a fine product that you can still gain some enjoyment out of. Even if you’re not a fan of the games, I’d recommend giving it a try! Hopefully, the sequel will manage to learn from these mistakes. And yes there will be a sequel, because after all, everything in “Five Nights at Freddy’s” always comes back!
