Five Nights at Freddy’s is the newest horror movie from Blumhouse and the latest video game adaptation in a year full of them. Based on a point-and-click survival horror game that built a huge following over the last decade thanks to gamers streaming playthroughs, we now have a Hollywood movie trying to adapt this very interactive type of horror storytelling to the passive nature of film. While it might not be the most successful, it’s not a complete waste, especially from the takes I’ve seen from a lot of critical peers in the game. FNaF, the film, is about a young man named Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) who, after losing his job as a mall security guard, needs a new job. He needs to take care of his younger sister as his parents aren’t around anymore, and his Aunt Jane is doing whatever she can take his sister away from him to get that state support check. Our guy Mike has Peter Parker-level problems right now. On top of all that, he’s a man troubled with trauma from the past of his younger brother, who was taken when he was twelve years old. He blames himself and uses sleeping medicine and methods to control his dreams to try and find out if he saw who kidnapped his brother.
Mike has to accept a job as a security guard during the night shift at a closed and rundown kid’s party eatery like a Chucky Cheese called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. He soon learns that there is more going on there with seemingly alive animatronic characters that are in the place. The scary-looking animatronic characters are as dangerous as they look. Josh Hutcherson does some good work. He really tries to put some pathos into Mike in his performance. He also does well with Piper Rubio as Abby, Mike’s younger sister. Abby is a kid who is a little too much of a child in this 2023 movie in terms of her acceptance of these living, animatronic, scary-looking beings. She almost feels like a character from a 1980s movie rather than one in the current world. Elizabeth Lail, who plays police officer Vanessa, befriends Mike and knows more about this place than she should, leaving much to be desired. I don’t think they gave her much to do or direction to make the character feel anything like a three-dimensional person.
I do think it’s cool that the person who created the game series, Scott Cawthon, got to write the screenplay and story. Since I’m not the biggest fan of playing first-person-style survival horror games, I have chosen not to play this series. However, looking over the games’ lore, the movie seems to work a good alternate version of this story in a more accessible, more linear fashion. While I don’t feel it’s a great horror movie, I think it’s a good one for kids. This film doesn’t have a lot of over-the-top gore; while it has some cuts, no on-screen murders. Feels about the same level as the game. I’d say this could work 6th grader and up easy, and since it’s on streaming, people can pause whenever they like. I think that’s a good area of focus with a horror movie, something more than whatever Disney Channel like Halloween movies and less than the usual Blumhouse or Prestige horror movies that come out these days. Five Nights at Freddy’s was overall a bit too long but pretty much an okay movie for the season and did right by its source material.
Score: C
