We checked out the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie to let you know if it is worth seeing.
*warning, minor spoilers can be found below for Five Nights at Freddy’s*
Given the popularity of the Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) video game series, I suppose it was only going to be a matter of time before the game received a film adaptation. I haven’t played the FNAF games myself, but I’ve seen and read enough to know that they can be quite terrifying depending on how a playthrough goes, and it seemed like the material was there to form the basis for a decently scary movie.
I still think the material for a scary FNAF movie exists, but the execution in this movie was definitely lacking. For those not familiar, Five Nights at Freddy’s follows a hapless security guard named Mike who ends up forced to take a job as the night security guard at Freddy Fazzbear’s Pizzeria. Over the course of the ensuing week, things get weird…really weird.
Let’s start with the positives because it isn’t all bad. The animatronic characters in this film look amazing. Those were overseen by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop and the quality really shows. What scares the film managed to achieve were greatly helped by how good these characters looked onscreen.
Another positive is the last act of the film is actually pretty good. How much one enjoys the last act will largely depend on how much FNAF lore the viewer knows, but I can safely say that if the entire film had been at the level of the last act, this would be a completely different review. I also want to drop a minor spoiler alert before mentioning that Matthew Lillard’s performance has everything do with how much I enjoyed the last act of FNAF.
Now for the bad news: a decent last act was not enough to save Five Nights at Freddy’s from being a mediocre video game movie at best. Considering what game is being adapted, you’d have thought that the bulk of the action would be centered in the security room, with jump scares everywhere. That’s what the trailers certainly led us to expect. Instead, what we got was at least half of the film centered around a barely watchable story, with dialogue that made me cringe way too much. I understand that there had to be some kind of set up for how the main character ends up as the security guard at Freddy’s, but surely there was a better way to do it than what we got.
What really sank this film was the uneven tone of it all. The scary moments were pretty good, but we didn’t get that feeling often enough. More often than not we were in awkward “family drama” territory and the FNAF setting doesn’t work for that vibe at all.
Hardcore fans of FNAF will likely enjoy this film regardless of the flaws. However, those like me who only viewed FNAF from a distance, this film leaves a lot to be desired. While I’d like to think this will be a one and done thing, the ending of the film leaves the door wide open for a sequel so I’m sure we’ll be going down this rabbit hole at least one more time, for better or worse.
