Directed by Emma Tammi and based on the popular video game series of the same name by Scott Cawthon, Five Nights at Freddy’s follows Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson), a troubled security guard, who accepts a night-time job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a once-successful but now abandoned family entertainment center. He discovers its four animatronic mascots – Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy – move and kill anyone who is still there after midnight. Mike’s nights at Freddy’s will lead him into unexplainable encounters with the supernatural and drag him into the black heart of an unspeakable nightmare.
Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) is a horror game franchise that is beloved by many, including myself, starting as a simple indie title that took the world by storm, spawning several sequels and spin-offs that to this day remain popular in the gaming community. The grand success of the franchise of course led to the idea of making a film adaptation that was initially announced all the way back in 2015, but various events led to the adaptation taking 8 years to get made. In that time, various inspired films were made like The Banana Splits Movie and Willy’s Wonderland, but people still held out hope for a proper FNAF adaptation to be made. After years of waiting it has finally arrived and was it worth the long wait? I would say yes, at least from a fan point of view.
I personally had fun with this adaptation, especially with the awesome audience I experienced it with, but I can definitely see why some people won’t like it for various reasons. This is a film that is very geared towards its fanbase rather than all audiences, in a similar fashion to The Super Mario Bros Movie, and it also takes certain directions that people may not expect for a horror film featuring killer animatronics. People may have a hard time connecting with this film as a whole but I feel there are some great things it offers that should not be overlooked.
To start things off we have a small cast involved in this film that delivers good performances respectively, but the true star of this film is Josh Hutcherson as the lead. This is my first time seeing him in a film since Mocking Jay Part 2 but I’ve always considered him to be a massively underrated actor and he does a great job giving us a very compelling horror lead, which can be a rarity these days in the horror genre.
The film takes its time exploring the troubled character of Mike Schmidt, allowing us to connect with him and understand why he is the way he is as his past trauma gets unveiled to us through supernatural means. I was honestly surprised at just how much Mike is fleshed out as a character, giving this film some heart as we see him going through so much and seeing how it ends up connecting to the murderous animatronics he’s having to share the building with.
Piper Rubio and Elizabeth Lail also deliver great performances, with Piper being a reserved yet heartfelt presence as Abby and Elizabeth being a very uncertain figure that you can’t really trust due to some trauma of her own. I can’t say too much about Matthew Lillard’s role in the film due to spoilers but I think many fans will know exactly who he is going in and Lillard fully commits to the performance in the best possible way. I wish we had a lot more of him in this film but then again with how things play out there’s definitely the chance we may get more of him if this film were to get a sequel.
The supporting characters are fine performance-wise but most serve as victims for this film’s kill count, with the exception of two fun cameos from YouTubers tied to games.
The other major stars of the film are of course the unnerving, iconic, and practical animatronics from the game, brought to life amazingly by the Jim Henson creature shop. They all look, sound, and act very much like their video game counterparts, with some new spins put on them to make them more unsettling and terrifying in live-action. But when you find out the truth behind what makes them come alive and kill people you do end up feeling empathy for them, which is something that does happen in the games too though it is done much differently than I expected here. Their designs are fantastic and the puppeteering is beyond incredible, making me happy to see they fully committed to making them practical rather than CGI monstrosities.
And as for the villainous Spring-trap, I won’t say too much but I can say he definitely lived up to the hype for me as the film builds up his appearance really well, making you feel dread and chills down before he joins the party.
The story I thought was mostly entertaining as it leans into more supernatural and campy elements of the games, as well as delivering lots of fun fan service, although I was kind of wanting it to be more scary. There are moments of scares that definitely got me, as well as some pretty damn good kills that occur even with a PG-13 rating, but I was hoping for a bit more of that. I would have also liked to see a bit more gore because some really great moments of gore do get shown, including one involving the dreaded spring lock mechanism that always sounded horrific in the games, and it has been brought to life in a vicious way on screen making me squirm seeing it.
Narratively this film could have been a lot better in certain places but when it comes to the technical elements of the film they enhance it hugely. The majority of the film takes place at Freddy Fazbear’s which they nailed from the games with its creepy run-down 80s-themed atmosphere, all of which was completely practical. The production design of this film is excellent and even for a small location they do make great use of all of the available elements to deliver fun scares or make you feel uneasy about being in the location.
Emma Tammi’s directing I will say is also really good, with some excellent cinematography as well as great uses of shadow and lighting. The editing could sometimes be a bit strange in some places while in others it’s really good.
The music, composed by the Newton Brothers, is really great and very fitting with the world of FNAF, heightening the tension of a lot of scenes.
While I do feel this adaptation could have done a lot more than it did I won’t say that there wasn’t any effort being put into it; there is a clear amount of effort that was put in especially since this was mostly made with the fanbase in mind. And with so much source material to work with it is very possible we could see a sequel to this adaptation, allowing the filmmakers to improve upon what they have done here and perhaps gain more audiences, rather than just cater to its own diehard fanbase. I still had a great time though and I recommend giving this film a go whenever possible. I’m going to give Five Nights At Freddy’s a B = 85.
You can find more of my writing on instagram, and check out my channel on YouTube!