Five Nights at Freddy’s: Film Review
It has taken more than nine years and lots of developmental issues, but the movie adaptation of the popular Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNaF for short) video game has finally arrived – and it’s not great.
The film stars Josh Hutcherson as Mike Schmidt, a troubled security guard who accepts a night-time job looking after Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a once-beloved family diner that was abandoned in the ’80s after several children went missing. He soon discovers that the restaurant’s animatronic mascots – Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy – become murderous during the night.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is nothing like it’s sold as in the trailer. I was expecting a straightforward horror with murderous robots but that’s not what we get. There are a couple of jump scares (in honour of the video game) but it is otherwise not scary at all. There is some suspense and threat and the mascots are creepy as hell but the camera cuts away before we see any violence or gore. The most horrifying moment in the trailer is significantly shortened and it feels closer to a 12A than a 15.
The film mistakenly spends too much time outside of Freddy’s – that’s where the horror is and that’s where the video game fans want to be. Instead, the movie gets bogged down in Mike’s traumatic backstory and his battle to keep custody of his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) and dedicates too long to his dreams, where he communicates with the missing children. There is also a lot of exposition about the history of Freddy’s, delivered by local cop Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail).
I understand the need to bulk out the characters but director Emma Tammi and co. went too far in trying to add dramatic weight to a story that could have easily been a one-location horror with Mike against the mascots. That’s all it needed to be. Why complicate things so much? By adding all these layers and subplots, the narrative is all over the place, drawn out and tonally uneven and I came away a little confused.
However, fans of the video game (which I have not played) should be pleased with the visuals. The mascots are identical to the ones in the game and the production design – particularly in the security guard’s office – is spot-on. If you are/were an avid FNaF player, seeing this world being brought to life will give you a thrill because the animatronics are so damn good. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the rest of the movie.
In cinemas from Wednesday 25th October