‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ Movie Review
Five Nights at Freddy’s is perhaps one of the most notable horror games to be released in the past decade and has had a grasp on children’s curiosity all around the globe. Ever since the initial release of the first four games to the public, fans have been begging for a movie to be released since all of the lore seemed to allow for a pretty lengthy and entertaining movie. After nearly ten long years of fans yearning for the movie, it was finally released with Blumhouse Studios, a very prominent horror movie producer, being in control of the movie. To many people’s surprise, the reviews were very mixed.
The movie takes place in the year 2000, with the protagonist, Mike Schmidt, a struggling young man in his mid-20s who is just trying to find a job to care for his little sister. With his options becoming more and more limited, Mike has no choice but to work the night security shift at an old and abandoned pizzeria called “Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.” The place was notorious for having a sketchy past that included five children dying inside the pizzeria. Overall, the plot was based very heavily on the lore of the games, which was very appealing to the fans, but not so much to newcomers and critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the critics and the audience scores were polar opposites, with critics rating the film a 30% and the audience rating it an 88%.
I enjoyed the movie since I grew up watching and playing the games, and I believe the studio was able to do all that they could with what they had available to them. Many fans were just expecting jump-scare after jump-scare, as that is what the game is known for, but for many, including myself, that would just become boring and repetitive and make the movie just like any other horror movie. I’m glad that they did focus on the lore for the movie, as that is what I and many fans love the game for, but doing so did create some problems which I do agree with. Since the studio focused on the lore for a majority of the movie, many people who seemed enticed by the idea of the movie but had no prior knowledge saw the movie as a near-unwatchable train-wreck, which does make sense since they would have no context for most parts of the movie.
Overall, the Five Nights at Freddy’s Movie is one I’d recommend to any horror fan, but I’d recommend playing the games prior to watching just to get a sense of what the movie is really about.
