Across eight years, a dozen games and countless jumpscares, the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” series has terrified and intrigued our generation.
The franchise’s first installment was a video game focused on a night-shift security guard at an off-brand Chuck E. Cheese’s called “Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria.” For five nights, you try to survive the restaurant’s animatronic band — Freddy Fazbear, a chicken named Chica, a bunny named Bonnie and a pirate fox named, well, Foxy — as they desperately try to murder you in the confines of your office.
The game’s deceptively simple point-and-click gameplay, however, hid a darker story. Hidden in clues around the restaurant was a story of child murder and vengeful spirits, spelling out the haunting of an ’80s-era eatery.
Made popular by YouTube videos of people theorizing about the story and being so scared they fell out of their chairs, the franchise’s convoluted plot line only grew with each installment.
Now, what started as a one-man indie-horror game finally hit the silver screen on Oct. 27, with the aptly-named film “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” With a budget of just $25 million, it immediately turned a profit with a $78 million domestic box office opening and a $130 million international opening. The film has been savaged by critics but loved by fans; now, I tell you who you should believe.
The Good
Unlike books, most video games are not easy to translate directly to the silver screen because what makes most video games interesting is the fact that you are an active participant in the story. Take “Pokemon;” those games are awesome because you don’t just watch someone else become the Pokemon Master; you are the Pokemon Master.
However, the main story of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is largely divorced from the gameplay, with lore hidden in clues and “Easter Eggs” throughout the games. Adapting the gameplay alone would mean ignoring the lore and story that grabbed much of the fanbase’s attention.
Sure, the process of beating a “Five Nights at Freddy’s” game is terrifying in its own right, but the blunt truth of how the animatronics are haunted — and the complex backstory explaining why they’re haunted — is what most people have stuck around for. It is, in some ways, an accessible horror-murder-mystery, constantly translated by “Let’s Plays” and internet theories for a wider audience. If you had neither the time nor the guts to play a “Five Nights at Freddy’s” game, you could still engage with the wider community and feel like you were watching the mystery get solved in real time.
That slow-burn riddle of a story is brought to life in this film. The directors made a deliberate choice to focus on the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” characters and the humanity of the franchise, and it is a choice that, to me, pays off.
The titular animatronics have physicality and presence; they are portrayed as intelligent and three-dimensional characters. This isn’t just a mindless slasher dressed in a familiar suit, but a successfully-developed narrative that establishes itself while remaining true to the core of its source material.
There’s also the overall production, sound and music quality, which reinforce good characters and a good sense of identity. The pizzeria and its animatronic denizens — courtesy of The Muppets’ Jim Henson Company — feel more real than any movie I’ve seen since “Jurassic Park,” and are certainly more impressive than any recent CGI offering.
The Bad
That being said, there are some legitimate criticisms of this film.
The first — and likely most common — is that it is not nearly as gruesome and violent as it could have been. The gore and violence feel deliberately toned-down, no doubt to open the film up to younger audiences and rake in more cash. The result, however, is a story that fails to fully capitalize on the impressive physicality of its star animatronics. We fear what the powerful machines can do, but never truly see those fears realized in more than a handful of moments.
The film also suffers from a bit of a pacing issue. The first half has excellent characterization and sets the stage quite well, but the second half is rather slim and speedy. In the theater, this was hardly noticeable — it felt quite natural for the film to end the way it did. However, rewatching the climax at home made me realize that I would have liked to see a longer climax that dwelled a little more on what exactly happened.
Critics have also said that the film is predictable and therefore dull. I won’t disagree with the predictable part, though at this point the franchise’s story is well-known to even casual fans. It’s also not hard for a franchise newcomer to pick up on the almost-Scooby-Doo level twists the film brings.
That being said, I think the film actually does a good job of executing a fairly simple plot. In my view, the archetypes and familiar plotlines the film leans into uses tried-and-true formulas to develop fresh faces and themes. Yes, you know what’s going to happen, but that doesn’t make what happens any less fun.
The Ugly
Easily the worst part of my movie experience were the audience members around me in the movie theater. I watched the movie on its opening Friday night, Oct. 27, at The Movies at Meadville, alongside a veritable army of people with no grasp of how to behave in public. With any big fan-favorite movie, there will always be fan reactions at the big moments. Those reactions typically last just a few seconds. On Friday night, however, those audience reactions consisted of 15-30 seconds of unbridled screaming, drowning out more than a few key lines of dialogue. Kids screamed at the screen like it was a “Rocky Horror” shadow cast and tossed entire buckets of popcorn on the audience. After the lights came back on, the mess was pretty visible.
I get that the movie is exciting and having an engaged audience can enhance the theatrical experience. I get that kids being kids is nothing new — a few screams at a movie about murder robots does not make a societal collapse.
At the same time, it was kind of sad to see that kids these days don’t know how to act in a movie theater. The shouts and screams I heard Friday night were not unique to Meadville; I’ve heard friends from around the world share similar experiences and fears.
It felt sadly ironic that an indie franchise made big by the internet seemed to pull the worst of internet culture out into public with it. That stereotype old people have of anyone with an ounce of digital literacy being rude? That stereotype was in the theater with me on Friday — iPad kids raised by the YouTube algorithm who never learned any manners. It makes me wonder if an R-rated film would have at limited the audience to a more mature crowd capable of being quiet for 109 minutes.
Should You Watch This Movie?
I would say, yes. On its own merits, the movie is far from the malformed mess critics would have you expect. It’s no “Citizen Kane” and its Oscar hopes are likely isolated to the world of practical effects, but the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” film is a fun and engaging time. Consider it a gritty horror flick and you’ll be disappointed, but watch it as a mystery-thriller and you’ll be quite entertained.
Final verdict: 8/10 Exotic Butters
