Movie Review: Five Nights at Freddy's

Happy Halloween!

Yeah, I stilll have that mask. As for the film, how could I not see this on opening weekend? I acknowledge the games for the important gaming and cultural phenomenon they've become as well as the indie horror milestones they represent. But I always felt more attracted to the franchise's lore than to its gameplay, so while I did review the first six games, I can't say I played them all for very long. A movie based on this universe was always going to appeal to me more in terms of presentation.

I understand Scott Cawthon wanting this product to be as close to how he views his creation as possible, hence his status as producer and his name repeatedly appearing in the intro credits. We also have Emma Tammi as director and Jason Blum (of Blumhouse) also as producer. This film spent long enough in development Hell that knockoffs had time to be greenlit, filmed and released before this one did. (Speaking of, doing a compare/contrast with one of those, Willy's Wonderland, would be wild.) Cawthon can safely say the bet paid off, because the end result, story-wise, is exactly what we could expect, yet throws enough curveballs to keep things interesting to those familiar with the franchise. When it comes to horror, however? It's a little light. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The story

Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) is a young adult down on his luck. Goes from a job to the next, without much success. He is taking care of his younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio) after their mother died and their father up and left. He is plagued by traumatic memories of the time when he was a child and his brother Garrett was kidnapped while the Schmidts were having a picnic. He has been reliving the scene in his dreams to catch any details that could let him recognize the kidnapper, without luck.

Threatened with eviction, struggling with his role as caretaker, dealing with an aunt (Mary Stuart Masterson) who wants to take Abby away not out of love and worry but for the government funding it would lend her, and losing yet another job, Mike sees a counselor who makes the dreadful suggestion. The pay will suck, the hours will suck, but it's not like he has any other options. Mike ends up taking the job as security nightguard at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a joint once home to bustling arcades and state-of-the-art animatronic performers, now an old and decrepit building that should have been torn down years ago. Really, all he has to do is hold this job down long enough to prove that he can be steady, and that'll be it.

Our protagonist doesn't start out too seriously, sleeping on the job a little too much for the first two nights. Unwise considering he's supposed to, y'know, guard the damn place. (Then again, I've done night shifts. I know the pain.) Mike feels an air to the pizzeria that he thinks might help his peculiar dream quest, and tries to sleep there against his better judgment. Hey, who would try to break into this place anyway? Sleeping a little won't hurt, right? Unfortunately for him, the threat is coming from inside the pizzeria.

It's only by getting serious about this that he'll make it out of those nights alive. Thankfully, he meets a cop, Vanessa Shelly (Elizabeth Lail), who elects to help him out and explain a few things about the place. A few things? Actually, she seems to know way more about Freddy Fazbear's Pizza than anyone should...

The review

As I said, I think the FNAF movie succeeds at what it set out to do: Represent the franchise in the best way the change in medium could. The feature mainly adapts the story of the very first game, but strong of the franchise's 9 years of existence and roughly 10 games, the story here has nods to a lot of events and elements past the first game's.

Adapting to film meant a protagonist with substance, hence why we get a greater story for Mike Schmidt, who tries to make ends meet for himself and his sister while investigating his brother's kidnapping, all stuff that's obviously absent from the original featureless protagonist we played in FNAF 1. From trailers alone, I was worried Josh Hutcherson's Mike would fall to the Pattinson-Stewart curse and be hard to tell apart from his previous, longer and more famous role as Peeta Mellark in the Hunger Games films. These worries faded fairly quickly in, with Hutcherson offering an excellent performance, blending well into the role of Mike. Major congratulations as well to Piper Rubio as Abby, who gets to show great talent as Mike's child sister. Lail is also noteworthy as Vanessa. (Also of note are a few cameos of YouTubers and Twitch streamers who did stuff about FNAF, like MatPat of "Game Theory" fame.)

I guess I need to say that I didn't keep a close eye on announcements about the movie, especially in regards to casting, as I didn't know about Hutcherson until I saw the trailers. That said, casting announcements, often made on streams, spoiled a whole lot of stuff, especially one role that I've personally avoided mentioning here, in order to keep the surprise if you don't know about it yet. Just gonna say - that role I'm keeping secret? It's great.

Obviously the story had to include more than the bare bones of a night watchman being threatened by animatronics for five nights. Much of the backstory about the place and its robotic performers is kept, though the film updates the setting from 1993 to early 2000. It pulls ideas from various FNAF games into a cohesive plot. Those who've followed the lore will recognize many of its aspects, while those who know nothing of the franchise will discover its most important elements as they become relevant. And for those who do know the franchise, as I said earlier, there are enough changes and twists to surprise them once or twice as well. This makes the film alright for both newcomers and long-timers.

One of the points of interest here? Seeing the animatronics, which look so identical to their game counterparts that you'd believe they're CGI. When actually, they're there for real as lifesize models created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Shame on me for thinking they were CGI. It's not until they're seen moving furniture and interacting with the surroundings that it sinks in.

Now, with all that said, I felt the film was light on scary content. Odd, for an adaptation of a franchise famous for its jump scares. Sure, there's a few and they're decent, but outside of that? Not much. Aside from a scene of a midday break-in at the pizzeria, with the results you can expect, there isn't much in the way of gore here. The film's focus isn't on the animatronics murdering people. It becomes a movie that's a lot more about Mike's survival in this situation (and, if possible, also seeing his own arc be resolved) than about the prospect of the gruesome end of an unlucky few. This decision does lead to the movie feeling too thin on scares and disturbing content, which may disappoint depending on your expectations. Fine for an easy horror watch but it won't measure up against more intense horror films, nor does it measure up to the horrific imagery from the games themselves. You could even say the film takes too long to get to the good bits and is rather undecisive in whether it wants to be more of a family drama, a straight horror film, a comedic horror film or a video game adaptation.

In terms of adaptation and representation of the series, it's at least done well. Your opinion may vary based on what you'd have liked this film to be. That said, two sequels are allegedly planned, so maybe we're going to have FNAF movies with more oomph on the side of scares eventually. Who knows.