Five Nights At Freddy’s Review

2023 has been the year of video game adaptations. Cinemas saw the release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Gran Turismo whilst The Last of Us and Twisted Metal have found success on television. Blumhouse has taken on the task of adapting the horror game franchise Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) is an out-of-work security guard who’s battling his aunt, Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson) for custody of his younger sister, Abby (Piper Rubio). In desperation, he takes a job as a security guard at an abandoned family entertainment centre. However, he suffers from menacing dreams about his brother’s abduction and the strange and creepy animatronics that roam the building.

Five Nights at Freddy’s was a franchise that grew extremely quickly. Within nine years since the first game, there have been nine games and seven spin-off games as well as novels and comic books. The games became popular because of reaction videos of people playing them and screaming when the animatronic monsters appeared. The film has been in development since 2015 with names like Seth Grahame-Smith (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Harry Potter), and Gil Kenan (City of Ember) being linked to the film before Emma Tammi took on the directing duties. The film has been in development for so long that it switched studios from Warner Bros. to Universal and had been inspired by two films Five Nights at Freddy’s (Willy’s Wonderland and The Banana Splits Movie) which had been released before the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie.

The Five Nights at Freddy’s were simple point-and-click games. The player is stuck in a room and needs to monitor the security camera footage and lock the doors at the right time. It was basically Night Trap. The Five Nights at Freddy’s had simple graphics and that’s why they were able to be churned out so quickly and built up its lore. I thought Five Nights at Freddy’s was a flash in the pan and that people wouldn’t be that interested in the film but it had a great first weekend and is already profitable, so it shows what I know. Blumhouse seems like they have another franchise to their name.

Five Nights at Freddy’s should have been a simple film about a man taking a security job at a rundown pizzeria who becomes haunted by the possessed animatronics. It could have been a bit of campy fun like M3GAN, Freaky, or the Happy Death Day movies, all of which were Blumhouse productions. There was potential for a modernised haunted house or siege movie with a healthy amount of ‘80s nostalgia. The title sequence had a bit of ‘80s nostalgia due to 8-bit graphics and sync music. However, the film had an overly complicated story.

The game’s creator, Scott Cawthon, co-wrote the screenplay with Seth Cuddeback and Tammi. His influence must have led to the film’s adaptation being made for the fans and less for newcomers. It was filled with backstories involving Mike’s past and the history of Freddy’s Fazbear’s Pizza. All of this bogs down the film because of Mike’s family drama and dreams. The backstory of a missing child and Mike getting hurt in his dreams turned into Nightmare on Elm Street which was a different type of horror film. The filmmakers were trying to give the film more weight than it needed. This was a film where one of the monsters was a killer robot cupcake.

Five Nights at Freddy’s was a film filled with some baffling filmmaking decisions. The first involved making Mike and Abby brother and sister. They look more like they could be father and daughter, one character even thought they were father and daughter. The other involved the character of Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), a police officer who acted as Madame Exposition and it was distracting that she was hanging out with Mike and Abby when she was on duty. Was there no crime in the city?

On a technical level, Five Nights at Freddy’s had some virtue. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop was hired to create the animatronics and they did a great job. They matched the design from the games and they had physicality and weight which has been missing in recent big-budget films. They do have a creep factor to them. The music was also of a high standard. The score was created by The Newton Brothers who usually collaborate with Mike Flanagan and they were able to provide atmospheric music. Creepy children singing usually do have an impact.

Five Nights at Freddy’s was a film that was made for the fans since it focused on the lore and backstory instead of making it a film for everyone. Five Nights at Freddy’s was so dull that if it wasn’t for the intelligential property, it would probably be forgotten quickly.