Recently fired and desperate for work, a troubled young man named Mike agrees to take a position as a night security guard at an abandoned theme restaurant: Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. But he soon d...
“Five Nights At Freddy’s” is yet ANOTHER in the long list of franchises that I’m familiar with but never actually played. That being said, the lore behind the games’ collective stories is fairly interesting and it was the only reason I gave in to seeing this movie. Plus, the creator of the games is involved in the writing procures so what could go wrong?
Long story short: it’s really 50-50 with this one. It’s the freakin’ Mario movie effect again.
Emma Tammi’s vision is one that reflects on quaint antiquity but is undone by the confusing staging she does. Her direction doesn’t lean into the horror aspect of the source material but the straight-faced faithfulness to everything else means she took her time with it; it’s a level of fealty that with a more ambiguous hand, I’m certain she’d succeed at.
Production design does a fairly decent job of tapping into the game’s distinctive malevolent absurdity as there’s an eerie disjointedness that expands beyond the pizzeria and it somehow both enhances and chips away at the film’s surprisingly somber and dreary atmosphere. Aesthetically speaking, I am deeply impressed with how they did the animatronics and how the muted colors added to the disquieting proceedings. That being said, the musical score is forgettable. I suppose the acting is competent, in regards to what they were given. Josh Hutcherson, Piper Rubio and Elizabeth Lail do their best but Matthew Lillard, the best of the bunch, is criminally underutilized (although I understand the reason behind that).
Despite some awkward over-edits, the cinematography thrives in minimalist format, getting in some nice, crisp and clear shots, and while the absence of an R-rating is equally frustrating, the way the violence is depicted here, relying on sounds and shadows to pull it off, sells it surprisingly better than other PG-13 outings.
Guess that can also serve as a nice mid-point on the ‘violence’ of this film; it’s obviously no gorefest but it’s not like Disney Channel levels of tame and embarrassing.
One thing I knew off the bat with this story was that it’s made up of two halves: the bare-bonded survival story and the metric crap-ton of lore surrounding the animatronics that the series is known for. Both halves of that equation were alway going to be a challenge even if the film’s structure wasn’t hamstrung by the pacing…….which it is, but even without that major glaring flaw, neither of those halves come out relatively unscathed because they both have the same issues: it’s not very scary and it can occasionally lose track of its tone. But to be honest, I was more taken aback by the latter than the former.
It speaks more to a film that knows what it wants to be but is unsure of HOW to present itself. Not only is the tension sorely lacking, but it keeps teasing deeper and stranger avenues to detour to that it doesn’t take advantage of (at least, not right now). Emotional and logical implausibilities are aplenty, the backstories are depicted in torturously tedious fashion, and everything else just feels oddly restrained.
Look, the lore behind these games are complicated and highly debated, so I am not surprised they tried to keep it streamlined and to be Frank here, expanding on the game's simple, primal premise with a surfeit of character melodrama wasn’t an issue for me; it’s just that none of said characters do much to get me on their side and the film just becomes very stereotypical and cliché the longer it goes on. It is a story that I've seen around 100 times, and it really doesn't do anything imaginative with the property other than sandpaper over it’s morbid personality down to its most generic jump-scares and banal revelations. Because even if you catch up on the lore, it leads to a lot of nice Easter eggs and references but it’s still nowhere near scary. The PG-13 rating, while not a total washout, does limit how creepy the movie could’ve been with the chains taken off.
Not to mention, I was very confused about WHO the movie was for, what kind of audience is this film trying to appeal to? Like, it definitely diverges from stuff FNAF fans will come to expect but casual audiences expecting kills and jumpscares aren't really gonna get that either? I’m not sure I understand the point there.
Fundamentally, this film still does work, and it really seems to be working for the core fanbase but even I can’t help but walk away from this experience expecting something more than what I was given. That being said, I’ve seen far FAR worse horror movies than this with more gore and jumpscares that met up to milk-toast results.
