Five Nights at Freddy's

I’m not a big gamer. When I do play, it’s almost always the old consoles from my childhood which I still have, namely N64 and PS2. That is to say while I’ve heard of the Five Nights at Freddy’s series, I’ve never played it. I knew nothing of the gameplay either, as became painfully obvious when a friend described it to me after the movie. Given my conviction that media should stand on its own, with knowledge of the source serving only to deepen your understanding and connection, that’s almost preferred. Because while I certainly try to watch a movie which adapts something I enjoy with clear eyes, that separation is a difficult exercise. No such problem here. I went into the theater with no expectations, save for those set by the trailer: it was going to be a haunted house movie, where the house is a run down Chuck E. Cheese knockoff, and the spooks are large animatronics.

Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) is struggling. He’s out of work, about to be booted from his home, and taking care of his much younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio). Their awful Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson) wants to take custody of Abby away from Mike, not because she cares about Abby, but because she wants the state’s childcare payments. So Mike decides to accept a job offered to him by an odd career counselor (played by Matthew Lillard), and becomes the latest overnight security guard at the abandoned Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria.

Most of his time is spent sleeping on the job, dreaming of the same thing he has for twenty years: the day his brother Garrett was kidnapped in front of his eyes. But ever since arriving at Freddy’s, five creepy kids start showing up in the dream to taunt him. And because there’s still not enough going on, on his first night he meets Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), a cop whose beat takes her by each night. She knows an awful lot about this place and its grisly history, which proves useful later in the film, once Freddy and the gang inevitably come to life.

The movie is overstuffed. I’ve intentionally left out some elements, in part to avoid spoilers, but also because they require more and more table setting. They keep adding new plot threads, new pieces to the board, and all of them distract from spending time in Freddy’s, even the bits which provide backstory on it and why it’s closed. We spend a handful of scenes with Aunt Jane as she plots to steal Abby (which does at least give some hilarious moments from Michael P. Sullivan as Doug, her lawyer), and even more with those she hires to screw with Mike. We spend a ton of time in Mike’s dream, with him chasing the strange dream children. And while we do get some early instances of the animatronics moving behind Mike’s back, all these complications refuse to let any sort of real dread or tension sink in. It’s a convoluted mess: not hard to follow, just impossible to care about.

But the biggest crime is just how bland all of this is. The story is pretty standard, predictable as hell from the get go, and following all the beats you expect from every plot thread. Which can be fine! I should be clear, predictable isn’t automatically bad. But you’ve got to nail the execution, and probably add some flourishes (visual, storytelling, characterization, something) that give it flavor, even if they’re unimportant for the resolution. However, this falls into the trap of hitting some small moments early on so hard that you have no choice but to think about how they’ll come back later, and you’ll almost certainly be right. Even worse, Freddy’s treats these unsurprising resolutions as reveals, which belies a lack of respect for your audience and elicits an eye roll instead of a gasp.

The acting doesn’t help to sell anything. Hutcherson suffers from generic white protagonist syndrome, rendering him quite forgettable. All of Lail’s dialogue and actions are incredibly stilted. Masterson does hurl herself into the role of Aunt Jane, but she’s written as such a cartoon that her character doesn’t really work. I will say the movements of Freddy and the gang are pretty solid, at times robotic and at times more human. Which makes sense given that they were primarily real suits with actors inside. Too bad they’re wasted as characters, and the grisly violence they inflict is almost always implied rather than depicted.

Which is another thing. You really feel the limitation of this thing’s PG-13 rating. By making something more broadly viewable, you’ve sanitized it to the point of innocuousness. They have to rely on some very poorly executed jump scares, which elicit laughter far more often than a shriek. The whole thing is quite funny, and mostly in ways that don’t feel intentional.

Maybe it’s trying to be a comedy: there are scenes to that effect. But the vibe is so confused, so all over the place, it’s impossible to tell. The score largely indicates we should be on edge, the characters (save for Aunt Jane) are all way too subdued to fit into the heightened world, and the overall story feels like it’s going for emotional impact. I did laugh out loud at certain bits, but most of them were serious dialogue or exposition, or moments that were intended to be triumphant or scary. They do know to play a few of the kills for comedy: most memorably, one character gets bitten in half (although only in silhouette), and their bottom half flops to the ground with a few splashes of blood. But the movie takes itself far too seriously, which is a huge waste of a silly premise.

Alright, I’ve avoided mentioning it for almost 1000 words, so now I’ll indulge myself. If you want an example of this premise done right, see 2021’s Willy’s Wonderland. It’s a comedy through and through, leaning hard into the absurdity of its setup. It engages with a bunch of tropes, but with such style that it’s hard to be mad. Once we get to Willy’s, we rarely leave, instead watching our mute protagonist clean and occasionally kick some animatronic ass. The film is covered in grime, and we don’t dwell on anyone’s backstory, never even bothering to find out the main character’s name. The whole point is just watching some cheesy, schlocky action, some insane situations, and reveling in the violence exacted against evil. As such, while it’s not “good” per se, it’s a boatload of fun.

Freddy’s isn’t that. It has too much to bring together, too many “reveals” to pay off, and so much backstory to spool out that two separate characters serve mostly as exposition machines. Maybe caring about the games would change the experience, at least making it a “so bad it’s good” movie. That seems to have been the view amongst those I saw it with, most of whom were Gen Z and fans of the games: they were clearly having fun during the movie, but afterwards noted it’s low quality. But it completely failed to make any sort of case for itself to someone not already in its pocket, and so I must recommend you skip this waste of time.