by Frank Kemp, Contributing Writer
This review comes from someone who has not had any personal experience with the games that Five Nights at Freddy’s is based upon. The closest I have been is watching Game Theory on YouTube.
Five Nights At Freddy’s is the tale of John Hutcherson’s Mike, who, unaware of the perilous animatronics present during the night hours, is hired at a family arcade and restaurant that has been abandoned. The film is produced and released by Blumhouse, and by a team of relatively unknown writers, as well as the creator of the games from which it originates from, Scott Cawthon. With the original creator’s involvement, this movie could not miss the mark, right?
Leading up to the release of the film there has been no shortage of EPK clips from the cast and crew talking about how this movie is indeed made for the fans, and honestly, I probably couldn’t disagree more with them. Having never played the game, I can see the central idea of FNaF — a haunted Chuck-E-Cheese with killer robots — and it seems to be paired with a script that may have been taken from Minority Report, helping to extend the movie to its 109-minute length. I get it, a movie has to movie, and when you have a licensed property from a video game or even a toy, you have to throw in a human story to try and connect with the audience. If you’ve ever lost a family member to strange danger in public, this movie is for you, as Mike is guilt-ridden over the death of his brother when they were both children.
While I did not hate the movie, it comes across as nothing more than a well-made attempt at creating a run-of-the-mill PG-13 horror movie. It fails to bring anything new to the table, instead simply cobbling together elements from other movies which execute horror clichés with much more finesse. The performances feel like they are more or less just there. While Hutcherson gives it his all, I would have preferred his backstory take place in a film other than this one. FNaF would have been a much better film if it wasn’t shoehorned into a FNaF movie.
Let us talk about the audience for this movie. It is PG-13, based on a game that has a young demographic, and they will enjoy it. There is plenty for them to enjoy. Blumhouse is a business, and like any business, they need to create a movie for teenagers to get dropped off at the mall and go see. As for the rest of the viewers on the older side, like myself, they dropped it on Peacock because otherwise, I would not have gone out to see it.
One thing this film succeeds at is all within the production value — the filmmakers do a perfect job of bringing the game location into the real world, creature design, set dressing. No complaints there at all. Blumhouse indeed went all in on this film. If you’re an end credit scene person, you can stick around for two in the middle of the credits (with no post credit scene). Blumhouse is hoping this film will be their new Purge, a series in which they can crank one out every year or two, much like Cawthon did with the game to keep generating some of those cold cold Freddy tickers to cash in for a good price. Will it work out for Blumhouse? Only box office results decide that, or possibly Peacock viewership, as Universal is still hoping their service will be their money maker, but that is a story for another time.
However, I think the movie you should see is Willy’s Wonderland, starring Nicolas Cage. That film is in all actuality a perfect FNaF movie that just doesn’t have the rights to the name. But that’s just a theory.
Rating: It Was Just Okay
Five Nights at Freddy’s is currently playing in theaters and on Peacock
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