From its initial release in 2014, Five Nights at Freddy’s became an overnight phenomenon. The horror video game series has remained relevant within popular culture thanks to recognizable mascots and cryptic storytelling that oozes intrigue. Despite the franchise’s campy yet frightening premise of surviving security shifts against haunted mascot animatronics, it contains a behemoth of a story spanning multiple games, spin offs, and novels. After a tumultuous eight long years of development, that list grows to include a film adaptation by director Emma Tammi. A big concern for adapting video games into movies is whether the story can stand on its own, while being faithful to the source material. In that regard, Five Nights at Freddy’s excels. The film translates the gameplay of being hunted by animal mascots well with silly, but exciting chases. More importantly the film lives up to its convoluted and incomprehensible source material by telling a charmingly abysmal story.
Over a decade after the murder of his brother, Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is still suffering from the trauma of the incident while working jobs to provide for his little sister Abby (Piper Rubio). On his first day as a security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s pizza, he discovers that there is something more sinister to the place than what meets the eye. To Five Night at Freddy’s credit, it does attempt to explore its strong emotional hook for its protagonist. The first half establishes the familial conflict between Mike and Abby, and how the loss of his brother haunts him. There is a creative plot point where Mike forces himself to dream about his brother’s death every night in hopes to remember the killer’s face. It provides a clear and efficient link between the two foundational storylines. Mike’s family drama, and the supernatural mysteries of the pizzeria.
Unfortunately, neither of these components has any substantial progression during the first half. Five Nights at Freddy’s bafflingly chooses to keep these pivotal elements in stasis in favor of fleshing out a subplot tangentially related to Mike’s family. Despite the film dedicating a large portion of its runtime to this subplot, it fails to connect to the main narrative in any meaningful way, only serving as a clunky plot device to shuffle main characters around different locations. Any time dedicated to Mike, Abby, and Fazbear’s mysteries is spent repeating established information rather than developing them. In addition, the cookie cutter dialogue and underwhelming performances outside of Hutcherson and Rubio causes the film to coast along until the story progresses.
These issues snowball into the second half. When things finally pick up, Five Nights at Freddy’s does not have the time to pay off its core beats in a satisfying manner. However, there is a strong level of ironic enjoyment seeing the film chaotically scramble to the finish line. The hilarity of its flaws is what made the latter half such a blast. From a critical lens, the abrupt ebbs and flows of Mike and Abby’s relationship do not have enough time to marinate, leaving the emotional center of the film to feel half baked. Moreover, the film presents their bond with randomly absurd scenes too silly to take seriously. As for the mysteries, instead of drip-feeding clues for the audience to process, Five Nights at Freddy’s puzzle pieces are often brought up and solved near instantly. The film does this by shoehorning the character Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), whose sole existence is to spout exposition. Every time she speaks the screenplay screeches to a halt as she monologues information about the pizzeria akin to reading facts off a wiki page. It’s terrible writing, but there is a charm to just how abysmal the execution is.
In terms of the animatronic kills, there is a lack of set pieces until the climax. Nonetheless, there are thrilling cat and mouse chases across the phenomenal practical set of the pizzeria. Although, the tension is undercut by how well designed and huggable the animatronics look. While they are faithful to the video game designs, they cannot quite replicate the unnerving horror that comes from the game’s uncanny graphics and animations. The animatronics look like they want to give their victims hugs instead of slaughtering them. Thus, the horror in this horror movie comes off as silly instead of scary.
Even with its fun set pieces and occasional good ideas, Five Nights at Freddy’s ultimately parallels the video games it originates from. An exciting, but silly piece of horror with an abysmal story. Those going in expecting quality will likely leave frustrated, but those going in knowing what to expect will be treated with a film where the glaring flaws contribute to its fun factor.
2/5 STARS