Five Nights at Freddy’s movie review
For those unfamiliar, the Five Nights at Freddy’s series of horror video games exploded in popularity after its initial release in 2014. The game revolved around the player assuming the role of a security guard working the night shift at a defunct pizza joint. The goal: survive the night while all of the establishment’s animatronics try to kill you. Through its signature heart-stopping jump scares of each animatronic capturing you when you fail, the series became a cult hit with players, and captivated more with its expanded stories in later releases.
Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023) introduces Mike (Josh Hutcherson), a guy severely down on his luck while trying to take care of his younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio). Mike finds himself scrambling to make ends meet after losing his job, when his career counselor Steve (Matthew Lillard) tells Mike about a gig working night security at an old pizza restaurant: Freddy Fazbear’s. Facing mounting bills and few options, Mike opts to take the job and slowly begins to find out that there’s a lot more than old pizza boxes lingering in the building.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: the animatronic characters look fantastic. The movie employed Jim Henson’s Creature Shop to create the animatronic and puppet effects for the film. From the jilted movements to the sinister stares, each of the Fazbear alums look as if they stepped straight out of the games. If there was one thing Five Nights had to get right, it was the puppets, and it knocked it out of the park.
The story on the other hand does suffer some pacing issues. The film adaptation directly lifts a lot of lore from the games, but makes several key changes to allow for a more cohesive story. Overall it creates a decent narrative that gives Mike good reasons to return to work with murderous robots night after night, but some of the character inclusions proved tertiary at best with little closure by the end of the movies’ 1 hour and 50 minute runtime. The cast does well in their roles however, with none of them leaning into overly kitschy or self-aware territory.
As far as actual frights, Five Nights at Freddy’s is surprisingly light in that category. Much of the scare factor in the original games was due to watching security monitors for the subtlest of movements in any of the animatronics until one of them inevitably got the jump on you (and your blood pressure) with a pop on-screen animation. The film however, doesn’t carry a lot of this suspense. A small sequence does show the grisly fate that befalls those who are captured by Freddy and crew, but there are shockingly few jump scares. Considering that the game was pretty much known for them and the film carrying a PG-13 rating, Five Nights at Freddy’s feels like it could have been a lot scarier than what it is.
For fans of the game, there’s quite a lot to enjoy. The movie pulled no punches in including references across the series of games. Eagle-eyed Freddy’s enthusiasts will likely spot several of the included Easter eggs (some literally in your face at times) and the set pieces are perfectly crafted to imitate the hollowed out joy of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. For folks that are unfamiliar with the games, the movie is entirely watchable, if a little bit of a slog in exposition at times.
There are certainly much worse video game film adaptations out there and Five Nights at Freddy’s does a damn good job combining game elements with a tightened up story. It’s just a shame it’s not a bit scarier.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is in theaters and streaming on Peacock on Oct. 27.
