Five Nights at Freddy’s review
Not since Over the Top has the story of a custody battle felt more out of place. You’ll be ready to tap out by night two at Freddy’s.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Five Nights at Freddy’s
Directed by Emma Tammi
Screenplay by Scott Cawthorn, Seth Cuddeback and Emma Tammi
Starring Josh Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard, Mary Stuart Masterson, Lucas Grant, Bailey Winston, Theodus Crane and Kevin Foster
Five Nights at Freddy’s Review
It’s possible I’m not remembering the Five Nights at Freddy’s game series well enough…or maybe I just never made it to the level where you have a custody battle with your aunt. In truth, I thought we might be in trouble when I saw the hour and fifty-minute run time. That’s an awful long time to spend in a movie based on a video game where you stare at screens trying to keep murderous animatronic animals at bay. I’d say there isn’t an elegant solution for turning that into a feature film…but Willy’s Wonderland and The Banana Splits Movie managed to do it just fine. Five Nights at Freddy’s, on the other hand, will make you want to call in sick by the end of night 2.
The story, for some reason, involves a man named Mike (Josh Hutcherson) who takes a night security job at Freddy Fazbear’s to keep guardianship over his little sister. His aunt has other plans. She is actively sabotaging Mike’s life to gain custody. This is the excuse to get Mike in the building…and provide some fodder for the murderous animatronic animals which are supposed to be the point of the movie.
Mike is haunted by his brother’s kidnapping when he was a child. He dreams about it every time he closes his eyes. Which mean…for long stretches of the movie…we see a repeated scene of his brother being abducted instead of watching monitors where the animatronics wreak havoc. Even when we finally do get some PG-13 violence…the movie turns right back to Mike’s trauma and family drama. Halfway through the movie you’d be forgiven for thinking that Five Nights at Freddy’s is heading towards a courtroom showdown instead of a survival horror story.
On night three Mike brings his sister to the dilapidated restaurant he’s in charge of protecting. It’s at this point that the movie starts to at least hint at its endgame. It’s way too late, of course. In the video game each night becomes more intense as the monsters appear more frequently. That’s kind of true here too. Only everything is undercut by the story the movie wants to tell instead. The draw of the film is set on the backburner again and again.
Then it gets stupid.
Yeah…after concentrating all it’s energy on custody battles and the mysterious disappearance of Mike’s brother…the movie about murderous animatronics gets stupid. The plot goes from boring to complete nonsense. Although nothing much happens the few nights…so many absurd things happen in the last two it can’t help but be funny. You’re left wondering how a video game about watching monitors became a nearly two-hour slow burn to a wacky climax.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is late to its own party. Not only has its central concept been done better by movies just blatantly ripping it off…but it doesn’t even seem to understand what makes its own source material work. Worse…it’s played straight. Each ridiculous reveal is presented in a far too serious manner.
It’s not all bad. The performances are quite strong for a movie this dumb. Hutcherson does the best that he can with a script that is actively working against him. I guess that doesn’t sound like the compliment to the movie it was meant as. The supporting cast does a fine job as well…especially given the nonsense they are asked to sell.
Five Nights at Freddy’s has more than twice the budget of Willy’s Wonderland and The Banana Splits Movie combined. It’s a fine-looking film…but that fact seems genuinely impossible. So much of the run time is spent in conversation about lost children and guardianship that it’s difficult to see where all the money went. More than any complaint lodged above (or the ones we can’t talk about without spoiling things) Five Nights at Freddy’s biggest issue is that it is flat out boring. Violence is muted. Scares are non-existent. There aren’t many laughs to be had. It is rarely fun. Missing the mark on every one of those possibilities is an incredible accomplishment.
The good news for Blumhouse and Universal Pictures is that Five Nights at Freddy’s is going to be a gigantic box office hit. Even with its same day release on Peacock…it’s tracking to more than triple its budget on opening weekend. Which makes sense…horror is always hotter than studios give it credit for and this spooky season’s theatrical offerings are strangely light. Hopefully the inevitable sequel makes a lot of different choices. Almost all the opposite ones this movie made.
Scare Value
Five Nights at Freddy’s is underwhelming in ways you probably would not have considered possible. Fans of the video game series won’t want to watch this screen for very long. Those looking for a good time this spooky season would be better off with almost any other release…be it streaming, VOD or the rare theatrical release (yes…even The Exorcist: Believer). That would have sounded implausible just a couple weeks ago. The floor on Five Nights at Freddy’s should have been a dumb, fun, silly time. It manages to leave out the last two.
1.5/5
Five Nights at Freddy’s Links
In theaters now – Fandango
Streaming on Peacock
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