So a quick note before I get into the beans and rice of this thing – I was given a copy of this movie from a friend. I enjoy FNAF as a franchise, but do not support Scott Cawthon, or his political beliefs. and as such, I havent supported him financially since around the time ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 4’ was released. Its very much ‘to each their own’ but I dont feel comfortable financially supporting someone who’s using that revenue to prop up vile ideologies. As always, I suggest you look into the issue, but yeah. I got this for free…anyway!

I’ve been a fan of the FNAF franchise pretty much since the release of ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’ and while I cant say im particularly great at the games. I enjoy watching other people play them, I enjoy the tone, atmosphere and lore, and even though the continuity on the series is essentially borked at this point, the core idea and concepts have always captured me, and I was surprised honestly that, outside of films like ‘West World’ or the early ‘Childs Play’ films…that this kind of ‘possessed killer robot ghost’ thing hadnt really been handled in live action media.

When the early games came out, I thought this franchise was just BEGGGING for a movie or TV adaptation, and lowe and behold! one was announced in the mid 2010’s…and then it fell into Development hell. The rights were initially sold to Warner Bros who, for whatever reason couldnt firm up a way to tell this story (despite a straight adaptation of the first game with maybe a few ‘pulls’ from the 2nd and 3rd game to flesh it out, being a surprisingly easy thing to do.) The film fermented over there with only a few glimpses at concept costumes for Freddy and Bonnie being revealed alongside a page or two of ‘rumoured’ scripting, before the rights lapsed and were resold to Universal and Blumhouse…If you wanna know how good the Warner Bros script for ‘Five nights’ would have been…its been heavily rumoured that what was generated over there, was tweaked slightly and released as ‘The Banana Splits Movie’…and that film…well. it exists and thats about the nicest thing I have to say…

And so, almost 9 years after it was initially revealed that a FNAF movie was in the works. It finally arrived in theaters LONG after the fad had died down (for reference, this film is a VERY loose adaptation of the first game, with elements of the 2nd and 3rd game thrown in. But by the time this film had come out, the entire franchise had been fully rebooted and relaunched, and was 2 years into that relaunch.) and…well, it feels like the film has been handled very ‘diplomatically’ is probably the best way I can describe it.

The reality of the situation is, FNAF as a franchise has always been targeted to teens and young adults. It deals with Child murder, abuse, creepy pasta style horror, the paranormal and isnt afraid to shy away from guts and gore if needs be. The problem is FNAF, on TOP of attracting that Teen/Young Adult audience…Also pulled in a LOT of kids, who via youtube were able to experience all the games, the memes, the spin off mods…and that kind of put the studio in a hard place honestly, because…How do you realise a horror game franchise that goes HARD in places into a film franchise that has a significant audience of under 13 year olds?

It essentially meant they could do one of two things, either stay faithful to the source material, make it R rated (18) and lose a significant portion of the box office. Or make it PG-13 (15 in the UK), take the hit on the grizzlier details and gore and tick off the hardcore fans. But maximise profit…You can guess which option they took…

So the film is set in the mid to late 90s and follows Mike, a young adult who’s lost his parents and is currently acting as guardian for his younger sister Abby. Mikes out of work, is still trying to find his place in the world, is being haunted by terrible nightmares of an incident in his childhood where his brother got kidnapped during a picnic. and condensing issues even further, Mikes aunt is trying desperately to seek guardianship of Abby over Mike despite neither Mike or Abby wanting this.

An olive branch is thrown Mikes way when he’s offered a…not so great gig running security on the night shift at Freddy Fazbears Pizzaria. A Chuck-e-cheese style animatronic pizza arcade that shut down in the late 80s after a series of child dissapearences and other ‘incidents’. Mike initially turns the job down as he doesnt work nights, but when its explained to him that taking this would look favourable to a judge should Mikes aunt take this guardianship case to the courts…he begrudgingly accepts.

And from there, things get weird. Mikes takes occasional naps on the job, and in his dreams he relives the abduction of his brother, but this time several children appear, silently giving the impression that they know what happened to Mikes brother. After a short while, we’re introduced to ‘Vanessa’ a cop in the local area who comes to check in with Mike nightly as the pizzaria is part of her rounds.

Vanessa eventually introduces Mike to the animatronics, Freddy, Foxy, Bonnie and Chica. the party pals of Freddy Fazbear…But theres more to these animatronics than meets the eye, as we see when Mikes Aunt hires some folks to break into the pizzaria and smash up the place in an attempt to get Mike fired…it transpires that these Animatronics are FAR from circuitry and wires…and that an evil presence haunts the pizzaria controlling the animatronics to do their bidding, and it wants Mike dead, and Abby to join the ranks!

I’ll be honest here, I do have to kind of try to seperate the games lore from the films lore. because if I try and compare the two, I feel like i’d be doing the film a disservice, becuase it doenst go anywhere NEAR in depth enough when compared to the games in terms of setting the atmosphere and lore. and even more surprisingly, there were very few jumpscares…which is kind of a core element of FNAF. I would argue if you want a richer, more in depth experience of this story, watching lets plays of the games is probably your best route. But im here to judge the film. and on the whole, I think for an PG audience, it does what it does about as well as it can do. Its flawed…but given the limitations, I get it…

The script here kind of oversimplifies things, the souls of the kids only really interact with Mike via dreams, whereas in the games they’re a bit more nebulous, interacting via the arcade machines, easter eggs, and even random encounters. and thats probably one of the biggest things missing from this film. there just isnt enough random unnerving stuff going on. In the FNAF games, on occasion, unsettling things just happen, like varients of the animatronics randomly appearing crumpled on the floor, in later games smashed up older animatronics will randomly turn up with unique features that are unsettling.

Here? we have a kind of linear supernatural horror film…and thats kind of it, there was plenty of opportunity to add small unsettling details into the backgrounds of shots for atmosphere, to set up things for potential sequels and to keep the viewers on the edge of their seats. But they just dont do it, hell even the animatronics, who are really supposed to be THE stars of this movie, dont get to do a whole lot. theres a couple of scenes, one at the beginning and one about a third of the way in where they get to do stuff, but because of the PG rating, most of the kills happen off screen, in shadows, or are just implied.

I know one of the reasons why they’ve chosen to soften the animatronics is partly because children cant be murderers in an PG rating…or if they are, it has to be indirectly attributed. But it doesnt half suck the fun out of the film when most of the horror elements of this film are really more ‘thriller’ attributed than ‘horror’ attributed. It feels kind of ‘soft’ by comparison…and while I will say that, the way they handled this film sets it up nicely for a much grizzlier sequel…that doesnt help us deal with the originals (ironic) lack of ‘bite.’

The characters themselves are all pretty much fine, with Mike, Vanessa and Abby all getting just enough complexity to help get the audience on board with them, and each character gets their own arc thats quite well handled. I just kind of wish those elements had been better connected in with the main plotline, because…as it stands, it feels like this was some kind of supernatural horror film that quickly had the animatronics stuffed into it, rather than it being a film where the animatronics actually got the plot built around them.

I thinkt he tones probably this films biggest save, its largely serious in its motivations, but it isnt afraid to contrast that darkness with a little comedy…it’s not quite as well handled as the games handle it. But I think it does alright.

In essence, this is a film that feels like its kind of trying to tell the FNAF story while being restrained. Again, I know WHY they did that. and It absolutely makes business sense TO DO that…but at the same time, it did leave me feeling like it just could have been a little more atmospheric or intense as a counter compensation…instead? this just kind of feels a little bit middle of the road for the most part, with only the occasional stand out moment to really push it up to the next level.

The directions pretty much fine, its a studio flick, Blumhouse know what theyre doing (for the most part) and this does manage to capture the run down, grimey feeling that freddy fazbears pizzaria commands. If I had any complaints, its that I felt like the main performance hall (where we spend most of the movie) could have stood to have been a bit more smashed up and grubby. But all the backrooms, offices and surrounding areas fit in perfectly.

Emma Tammi does a solid job bringing the visuals of the games to life here, and while I will say that this film is maybe a little overly ‘safe’ in terms of its direction, that by no means means its a bad watch. To me? it feels like it gets in, does what needs to be done, coordinates the various departments well, adds a decent amount of flare and then gets out. It absolutely could have been done better, but i’ll take ‘just above average’ over ‘poor’ any day.

Same goes for the cine really, I had a few issues with lighting where they decided to go for an overly dark setup that made it hard to see what was really going on in some of the darker sequences. But shots are very well composed, that 80s neon colour flare really helps perk things up, the animatronics (for the most part) look great on camera, though there are a couple of scenes where the movements make it VERY clear these are guys in costumes…which did pull me out of the action a bit…But on the whole? this is probably about as good as a FNAF movie adapation could get on a visual front…Would I have liked a bit more experiementation? absolutely…But then, this film wasnt really meant for me. It was meant for kids aged 12-17. I just happen to be collateral.

Performance wise, its solid, Josh Hutcherson as Mike brings a likeable and ‘downtrodden’ energy to the role giving…maybe just a tad too much of a theatrical performance to his deliveries. But on the whole, hes pretty much fine. he has a good level of physicality and I hope if they do get a sequel off the ground he makes a return. Same goes for Elizabeth Lail as Vanessa, who manages to bring a sunny and sincere energy to the role, that turns quickly when her past begins to creep out. I will also give VERY high praise to Matthew lilard…I…I cant say why because *spoilers* but he plays his part very well, and genuinely surprised me. It was great to see him back in a horror role.

And finally the soundtrack is okay. its clear they were aiming for 80s chic with it, but they wanted to make it clear this film wasnt taking place in the real world…which means we get treated to a mixture of LCD Soundsystem style drone pieces, combined with dollar tree/kidz bop style soundalike tracks of 80s hits with totally different lyrics (the big one for me being that Michael Jacksons sound seems to get a roll out here at least a couple of times…) It suits the film, but didnt really do anything for me personally.

All in all? I’ve seen and read a few different attempts at adapting FNAF to a movie by this point, both from studios, and from fans…and out of all of them, this ones been the best. But that doesnt mean its not without its faults. the total lack of directional atmosphere, and lack of attention to detail on creating those smaller ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moments that really put the fear of god into people. results in this film feeling just a little too clinically safe for me personally.

The fact they spend most of the movie essentially just establishing the core lores of the franchise means that a sequel can really hit the ground running and ramp up from there…But leaves this film feeling a bit like a launch pad, rather than a rocket.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’, I look forward to checking out the inevitable sequel. Do I think you should rush out to check this out? No…and especially not if your deep into the games lore…But if your looking for a casual watch of an evening, something that goes down easy and just about scratches an itch, I think you could stand to do worse than this.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/five-nights-at-freddys/