Chances are slim that you've existed here on Earth and not encountered something from the nearly ubiquitous Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. Fred... Fredward... Friedrich... We'll just call him Freddy. The titular bear and his coterie of ghoulish animal robot companions have been incredibly popular characters in the gaming world for the last decade. It seems like everywhere you look you find a new sequel, spin-off, piece of merch or lore video from the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. It took several years, but they finally made a feature film; and it's not terrible. It's not great, but it definitely could've been worse.
If somehow you're not familiar with Five Nights, I'll give a brief explanation. Think Chuck E. (the E stands for entertainment) Cheese with the arcade, pizza and animatronic animal band. Five Nights takes place in Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, which is heavily inspired by Chuck E. Cheese. The main crux of the franchise though is that the animatronic characters are alive - or rather they're "animated," by the ghosts of missing children. The gameplay, and also the plot, centers around an overnight security guard that must survive each night while the animatronics attempt to kill him. The movie is an adaptation of this plot, so it largely follows the same beats. The story follows Mike and his little sister Abby, who he is the legal guardian of. Their parents are out of the picture, and Mike is in danger of losing custody of Abby to their abusive aunt. Mike, desperate to keep work so he can take care of his sister, takes the security guard job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Things go off the rails almost immediately from there. I don't want to spoil anything further.
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| Image Credit: Screen Rant |
So, let's get into it. Five Nights at Freddy's is an okay film. I think the tone of the movie might be the most noteworthy element. While I'm somewhat familiar with the lore, I was surprised at how grim and sullen the movie felt at times, even knowing the subject matter. The lead character, Mike, has serious emotional damage inflicted by a childhood tragedy involving his little brother being kidnapped right in front of him. This event created something of a mental scar on him that has had widespread ramifications on his life; including a sense of worthlessness and struggling feeling connected with his job(s) or any sort of friendships or relationships. The movie revisits the pain of the day he saw his little brother's kidnapping constantly, as the moment haunts him in reoccurring dreams. The desaturated, cool toned color palette in scenes surrounding Mike's challenging life and the film's focus on kidnapped and missing children keeps it feeling legitimately depressing. It can be disparate at times though. There will be a scene with a goofy, tongue-in-cheek visual gag and then that is immediately followed by an instance of genuinely dark storytelling involving the lead character's past or current miserable existence. It feels tonally inconsistent. Much of that comes as a result of Mike's current living situation - he is the caretaker of his little sister, Abby. While Abby doesn't necessarily add an inherent lighthearted aspect to the overall story, the sequences that feature her interactions with the animatronics blunt the story of much of its potential bite.
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| Image Credit: MovieWeb |
I feel like the movie could've been much scarier, and still remain PG-13. I would've loved to have seen the animatronics really rack up some scary scenes and kills, as the entire concept of robotic children's characters being possessed by the spirits of dead kids is a horrific idea. We really only see Freddy and the gang be truly creepy in a couple of scenes. It feels like the movie was trying to be "more" than a jump-scare fest, with its focus on trauma and Mike's mental health, but I don't think that ended up working for the film. They even explore some very strange concepts around Mike's recurring nightmare having connections to the afterlife and dreams containing messages. It feels like they could've leaned into the childhood trauma and kidnapping approach and made a really interesting, grounded subversion of what you'd expect from a Five Nights at Freddy's film, or they should've just gone full bore into being an 80s-style slasher and really try to make it scary and get more jump-scares in there, which is a hallmark of the Five Nights at Freddy's game series. There are also some very sloppy, bizarre plot twists in the last act of the movie. The movie story relies too much on connective tissue between all of these characters and it reaches a point of absurdity with everyone in the movie being connected to each other in some way or another. It feels like Star Wars' "Small Universe syndrome," where everyone knows each other and has a past, even though there aren't really any good reason for these people to have history with each other.
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| Image Credit: Den of Geek |
All in all, I think Five Nights at Freddy's is passable. If you're a diehard fan of the franchise, you'll probably love seeing your favorite series get the film treatment. It's a competently made movie, but it's held down by an inconsistent tone and a real lack of fear. There is a sequel en route, supposedly coming out this December. I'll be curious to see if it's any scarier. I'm sure the franchise's fans will be excited regardless though.
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