The less backstory the better. Video game to movie adaptations work best when there isn’t a rich deep story tapestry. Last of Us TV Show, good! Last of Us Movie: probably pretty crappy. Sonic would be the opposite. So where does Five Nights At Freddy’s fit? I’m pretty sure there’s a great scary flick in here somewhere, but gamer fan service translates to a mediocre mainstream movie one. But don’t tell Freddy I said that.
Like the games, Five Night At Freddy’s has a male protagonist, Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson). Mike’s life sucks; he’s haunted by his past, unable to hold down any jobs, and forced to care for his young sister Abby (Piper Rubio). After Abby and Mike’s aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson) threatens to take custody of Abby, Mike desperately goes in search of a job. Through career counselor Steve Raglan (Matthew Lillard), Mike takes the overnight shift at the abandoned Freddy Fazbear’s, a Chuck E Cheese like restaurant filled with animatronic robots. Mike thinks he can just sleep through the gig, but beat police officer Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) asks questions about “meeting them” that has Mike wondering if something else is going on.
Demented Chuck E Cheese sounds like a perfect setup for a horror movie right? If there were no video games, Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy would be awesome and scary as hell. Instead, the movie tries to build around its target demo: 11-14 year old boys who love the game. This cuts director Emma Tammi’s legs from under her, as she has to make the violence and scares age appropriate. We only get one really scary scene of mayhem shrouded in darkness and cutaways: instead we get much more weird behavior from the animatronics. This gives the movie an off kilter sense of humor that works in fits and starts depending on the scene. Matthew Lillard and Elizabeth Lail find the movie’s wavelength, but everyone else is in another film. Especially poor Josh Hutcherson, trapped in a heartbreaking character drama. Like Mario, FNAF relies on its easter eggs to keep you interested when we’re not at Freddy Fazbear’s. It’s maybe telling that the scariest moment in the movie isn’t from one of the core 4 animatronics, because franchisability is more important to the producers than making a great horror movie first.
There are multiple Freddy’s video games, so maybe we’ll get the sequels the producers clearly want. But if they are as mediocre as this first film, count me out. My suggestion: make an R rated movie cut, and put a PG-13 one on Peacock. If I have to spend 90 minutes around animatronics, I want them going Itchy and Scratchy Land on everyone in the restaurant!