On Oct. 27th, a film that has been anticipated for 8.5 years, was finally released. The Five Nights at Freddy’s movie – a film based on the video game under the same name –released in theaters and the Peacock streaming service. Upon the opening weekend of Oct. 27th-29th, the film made approximately $80 million, which is 4 times the initial film budget, and to this day is Blumhouse’s biggest film, making a total of $251.9 million as of Nov. 11th.
Despite the positive reviews from fans, professional critics weren’t as impressed. With a 30% on Rotten tomatoes, a 5.5/10 on IMDb, and a 4/10 on IGN. This is a massive decrease as compared to the much higher rating of 4.4/5 stars rated by fans
Having watched through the film, it is very clear it is intended to be a fan service. The movie has a plethora of references strewn throughout the film, if you decided to watch this film without any prior knowledge of the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise or its lore, it is clear to see why it received such a low rating. Despite being labeled as a horror movie, it doesn’t exactly live up to the expectations of one. With scenes such as a “fort building scene” in the middle of the film taking away from the whole horror aspect in my opinion. This scene shows the main protagonist Mike Schmidt, his little sister Abby, and the police officer Vanessa going around building a fort with the haunted, and previously murderous animatronics.
Some have argued that the reasoning behind this scene is the fact that the animatronic suits have all been possessed by the souls of children, giving their personalities child-like tendencies. But the entire scene still felt unnecessary, it didn’t build any sort of plot or add any important information to the story.
My main criticism of the movie is that it wasn’t nearly as scary as it was expected to be. The original creator of the video games Scott Cawthon said, “the Five Nights at Freddy’s film will not hold back on the violence” however after having seen the film, I believe it did not live up to the expectation set by this, although it did definitely have its gory moments. I think the scenes that did include gore, such as the bite from the Freddy Fazbear animatronic, as well as the “Springlock” scene at the end of the film were incredibly well made, and definitely showed the love and care put into the film by the director and set designers.
Even with all of the criticisms, the film absolutely had some incredible scenes, and the easter eggs hidden in scenes were also really well placed. One of these includes the casting of Youtuber Matthew Patrick or “MatPat” as the Sparky’s diner waiter. In this scene he also uses one of his well-known quotes “But that’s just a theory” an undeniable nod to his loyalty to the series throughout the years through all of the content he has made. However, if this was your first time with anything related to Five Nights at Freddy’s, this most likely blew over your head and seemed very out of place. The cherry on top to die-hard fans was the choice of music to play during the credits. As the screen fades to black it begins to play the song “Five Nights at Freddy’s” by The Living Tombstone. This song is widely regarded as one of the very first songs made about the game and anyone who has been in the fanbase most likely knows the song or has at the very least heard of it.
As for casting, I believe they did a wonderful job. Josh Hutcherson did an incredible job with Mike, as well as having Matthew Lillard, cast as Steve Raglan. They both fit into their roles incredibly and pulled them off very well. One of my personal favorite examples of this was towards the end when Raglan was surrounded and betrayed by the animatronics he thought to be his “puppets” as the springlocks close in on his chest and delivers the notorious, “I always come back” line (which is well known in the fandom.) I think overall the acting throughout not only this final scene but the entire film was well done and I wouldn’t change anything about it.
Now, would I recommend you see this movie? Well, that depends, I think if you’ve been following the developments of the movie as a lot of people have throughout the years since its original announcement back in April of 2015, then I do believe getting it on Peacock or seeing it in theaters would be well worth the price. It’s quite a unique film with a pretty high likelihood of a second film being released in the coming years. However if you aren’t a huge Five Nights at Freddy’s aficionado, and aren’t likely to find much interest in the game or its world after watching the film, then probably not.
