Jasonic's Favorites: Five Nights at Freddy's
Hello, and good evening, Internet!
Freddy may not be the main character of this movie, but the franchise is still one of my favorites and I wanted to do this in anticipation for the upcoming sequel!
Released in 2023, Five Nights at Freddy's is the movie adaptation of the ever-popular, ever-memed, ever-theorized indie game franchise that took the world by storm a little over a decade ago in 2014. Many discovered this game through the various popular Let's Players on YouTube (Markiplier, jacksepticeye, PewDePie, and CoryxKenshin to name a few), and the game quickly developed an online following of devoted fans and theorists including MatPat of Game Theory -- not excluding cringe fan artists and fanfic writers. That aside, it was the game that brought its creator, Scott Cawthon, to fame and relevance and thus Warner Bros. quickly jumped at the chance to greenlight a movie adaptation in 2015. After a brief development hell where the project was passed from different companies, eventually Blumhouse Productions picked it up and it got off the ground and released it this decade; despite being received poorly by critics and some fans, the film was a shocking financial success due to the fanbase's devoted following and the great anticipation that many had for the franchise to make it to the big screen. With this much of a success story under its belt, naturally, a sequel was both warranted and possible; given the greater success of video game movies in the form of the Sonic movies, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and this movie in the 2020s thus far, it is clear that video game movies are becoming more profitable, possibly taking over superhero movies as this decade's newest form of blockbuster genre. For me, it was the first time I ever went to a Halloween-release horror movie because, in the years building up to the game becoming a movie, I never once dared to see a horror movie out of fear of having horrid nightmares and was thankfully never forced to see one in any social situation when I was younger. Oddly enough, I owe it to watching the Five Nights at Freddy's games throughout the last decade for desensitizing me to the horror genre and realizing that, even with a movie/game's horrific aspects causing most kids nightmares that there's almost nothing to be afraid of as an adult -- jumpscares, maybe, but even FNaF helped me not be so scared of them. That said, I found myself enjoying the movie and do think some critics are overhating it because of some of the things that differentiate it from traditional Halloween horror. Many, including the fans, have valid criticisms, but I will ask what I always ask and say, "Are they really warranted criticisms?" To find out, let's strap on our nightguard badges, turn on our flashlights, and delve into Freddy Fazbear's Pizza's dark history that presents itself in Five Nights and Freddy's.
*SPOILERS* (though maybe you're a fan and have seen the movie, heard of the franchise, or maybe just don't care)
The movie takes place sometime in the early 2000s; in it, a troubled family man named Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) is fired from his mall security guard position for assaulting a father whom he mistook for someone kidnapping a child. Having dealt with such trauma before when his younger brother, Garrett (Lucas Grant), was kidnapped by a mysterious man never to be seen again, he struggles to provide for his younger sister, Abby (Piper Rubio), with whom he has difficulty getting along with. Mike soon resorts to his career counselor, Steve Raglan (Matthew Lillard), who offers him the night shift at the abandoned building of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a Chuck E. Cheese-like establishment that was once huge in the 80s. Under the threat of their mean, self-righteous Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson) demanding custody of Abby, Mike soon accepts the job at Freddy's and continues his nightly routine of taking sleeping pills, listening to nature sounds, and staring at a poster of Nebraska so he can relive his memory of Garrett's kidnapping to find out who took him. The memory becomes clearer when he's at Freddy's and, to his surprise, his dreams show him unexpected visitors of five mysterious children who run away from Mike before he wakes up; with Mike unaware of what happened at Freddy's as well as the dangers of the animatronic characters there, he continues the job for the sake of finding answers. Meanwhile, Aunt Jane hires a gang of vandals, including Abby's babysitter, Max (Kat Conner Sterling), to vandalize Freddy's so that she may get Mike in enough trouble to claim custody of Abby quicker. Mike's going to sleep and getting injured from his encounter with the kids in his dream as well as his encounter with police officer, Vanessa Shelly (Elizabeth Lail), cause him to forget to lock the back door, inadvertently allowing the gang to infiltrate Freddy's, vandalize, and loot the place. To their horror, the animatronics show their vengeful spirits and kill them all, Mike unaware of what happened and why. When Vanessa, who knows a lot about Freddy's, discovers Mike had sleeping pills at his work, rendering him liable for the building's vandalism, they have a discussion where Mike explains his history and how he's trying to find answers on what happened to his brother. Vanessa empathizes with him, seemingly knowing more than she's letting on and has him get rid of the pills, deciding not to arrest him. Soon, Mike decides on the third night to take Abby along with him to his job despite his initial reluctance to take her in the first place; what he ends up finding out about the animatronics that night and the subsequent two nights will turn his world upside down and make him realize that what was in the past should not be dictating the present.
One reason certain fans may not like the movie right off the bat is that the plot, while similar to the first game, is different enough that it mostly differentiates from the source material. Throughout each Five Nights at Freddy's game, the player is awake all night, staying on high alert by checking the lights and cameras to ensure that the animatronics don't reach the main room (office, bedroom, etc.) and kill whatever nightguard/kid you're playing as. Movie Mike Schmidt, on the other hand, does not find himself in that scenario, instead resorting to revisiting the memory of his brother's kidnapping/murder in his sleep and finding the missing children's spirits visiting and antagonizing him there. For being different, I won't say that setup makes the movie bad because, in my opinion, it creates some intrigue around Mike Schmidt's backstory, something the games don't delve into, much less spell out, and tying it effectively into the Missing Children Incident at Freddy's that the first game told us about in the background details and more or less showed more of in the other games. The movie practically takes elements from throughout the franchise with the three different Balloon Boy jumpscares, the setup, lore, and scenario details of FNaF1 and 3, and Vanessa in both her role and appearance being based on the security guard named Vanessa from the later game, Security Breach. In this sense, it definitely caters to the fans while providing different context for the movie continuity, creating something different for those who don't know the franchise; I probably would have geeked out hard if they did a proper FNaF1 security cameras and lights scenario with Mike taking action to defend himself from the animatronics, but as it stands, the only time the animatronics are moving around the pizzeria in search of people to kill are in the intro, the vandals scene, and when Mike returns midday to visit his dream memory for the last time. The shots of the animatronics moving around on the cameras in the vandals scene are hugely reminiscent of FNaF1 and made for great trailer shots that hyped me up for seeing the standard Five Nights at Freddy's job situation on the big screen. Sadly, this first movie didn't accurately deliver a representation of the games' scenario, but I honestly didn't hate what it ended up doing differently; it could have been some sort of restriction they had in place, but it appears that Blumhouse was trying to dumb down the scary tone/situations of the games as a means of meeting that PG-13 rating as well as easing potential child viewers into the film franchise without scaring the daylights out of them. My mom in her occupation hears about Five Nights at Freddy's from kids who are too young to be playing it and, to the film's credit, it helps ease younger viewers into the movie universe with its not-so-scary representation of things. Personally, I like being scared by games such as Freddy's nowadays and, while this first one didn't deliver as much, the trailers for the sequel show that they are leaning more into horror, which is something I hope it does better than this first movie.
What the film does freshly in the eyes of modern filmmaking is using authentic animatronics, little use of special effects, and absolutely no CGI from what I can tell; the animatronics of Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy are actual animatronics made by none other than the Jim Henson's Creature Shop and move around through the use of suit performers. The decision to make the animatronics real as opposed to CG lends itself to the film's authenticity and allows the animatronics to both look and feel real through their silent actions and reactions. Whether they're acting friendly with Abby, indifferent/antagonistic toward Mike, or straight up menacing and murderous with the vandals, their facial expressions, body language, and occasional red eyes display their personalities well even if they're not notably showcased enough. A big criticism I have heard about the animatronic characters themselves is that they are too friendly most of the time and make you want to hug them more than fear them; I'd say that is true to some degree, but not to the film's detriment. The scenario from the games that they wanted to explore more of was the aforementioned Missing Children Incident mentioned mainly in FNaF1 and this is a theme I have seen explored more in FNaF fan works such as NateWantsToBattle's fan song "Nightmare" from yesteryear; had the animatronics been purely heartless monsters who kill everyone, we wouldn't have been able to empathize for the children's spirits who possessed them and even despite that, their vengeance displays when necessary mainly toward the adults who get in their way. In addition to the actual animatronics and a few VFX shots that display more complex effects, the other most notable thing I enjoy about this film is the reveal of the main antagonist nicknamed "The Yellow Rabbit" (aka Steve Raglan/William Afton). The suit looks accurate to the Spring Bonnie/Springtrap suit from the games, resembling a medium between the initially unweathered Spring Bonnie from early in the timeline and the heavily weathered and yellowed Springtrap suit from FNaF3. On top of looking game accurate, it moves completely like there is a person inside of it, which there obviously is though I am unsure if it was entirely Matthew Lillard's body acting even with the mask on; regardless, the springlock/Springtrap suit is very game accurate and I can hardly wait to see what it will look like in the sequel. The more gruesome scenes such as Afton's iconic springlock moment as well as the ways in which the animatronics are shown killing and mangling the vandals could use work as, while the bloody images allow them to meet the PG-13 rating, they are very brief and not the most horrific-looking shots in horror movie existence. There is a popular fanmade audio track of the FNaF3 Afton springlock scene that this movie recreates and, quite honestly, I felt more unnerved listening to that than I did seeing Afton being springlocked in the movie. The film still has decent to great special effects and a great amount of authenticity and I'm hopeful that even those aspects will be improved by the sequel.
Most of the actors here aren't really anything to write home about, but the good thing is that they get the job done well enough and are far from laughable. Josh Hutcherson is a decent take on a troubled man with a tragic past, appearing determined when it comes to his line of work, solemn when thinking about his past and how much he revisits it, and occasionally having a cheeky sense of humor regarding stuff like his sister's imagination. I don't quite buy his rage when he discovers the truth about Vanessa and her connection to Afton as he sounds a little restrained in expressing it though I have known him to be a decent to good actor even when he was younger and I trust that he could possibly improve going forward. Piper Rubio, being the main child actor of the movie, shockingly isn't horrible or annoying as Abby and her eccentric loner tendencies are on display the more she sits alone drawing pictures of her imaginary friends -- who later turn out to be the animatronics -- and her occasional outbursts toward Mike acting stupid are pretty understandable from a child's perspective. Elizabeth Lail isn't a huge standout as Vanessa Shelly, but she gets the job done with her stern and enforcing police officer persona, her occasionally playful side showing when reminiscing about how great Freddy's once was as well as when playing with the animatronics alongside Mike and Abby. Her withholding nature, while a bit cliche in a horror mystery story, does a well enough job of convincing you that she can't be trusted as much as you would hope given her occupation as a cop. Perhaps her biggest standout moment is the one moment toward the middle where she's staring at the picture of the Yellow Rabbit being friendly with the children; we see her pained facial expression, showing us that she knows something deep and dark about the rabbit that she's not letting on, effectively foreshadowing her connection to the rabbit/Afton. If there's anything I enjoy about mid/underrated performances, it's when an actor can show convincing facial expressions like that and she pulled it off well. Mary Stuart Masterson, interestingly enough, was nominated for "Worst Supporting Actress" in this movie at the Golden Raspberry Awards for her performance as Aunt Jane and, to an extent, it's easy to see why. She's supposed to be the hateable, villainous aunt who is mean toward Mike and fakely friendly toward Abby, crying to social services to garner sympathy from the counselor over how "awful" she believes Mike treats Abby. While the cues of a bad aunt are there, her acting doesn't sell it as well in her attitude; she's a good actress from what I know, but for being the arguably more awful antagonist compared to Afton according to some fans, I don't find myself buying her narcissistic tendencies as much -- it still feels satisfactory when the child's spirit inside Golden Freddy kills her and claims to Abby that she "fell asleep". Despite most of the acting being good to mid at most, a lot of movies I review (even poorly received ones) have that redeeming factor of a good actor playing an iconic villain with a great performance and Matthew Lillard as William Afton/Yellow Rabbit is no exception. Though I have mainly known him for his live action and animated role of Shaggy in Scooby-Doo, I have heard from various sources that Lillard got his start as horror movie serial killers such as Ghostface in the original Scream and that that's why he was picked to be the iconic FNaF serial killer of all people. For those who didn't know much about Afton, he seems like the casual career counselor dude who offers Mike coffee during their talk in the beginning though the fact that he disappears after his first couple scenes is enough to leave people suspecting he has a bigger role. When he finally comes out in the Spring Bonnie suit at the climax, his modulated voice even displays a berrating, even boisterously proud attitude toward Mike over his inability to let go of the need to solve that he (Afton) killed his brother as well as the fact that he's going to kill Mike too -- "Symmetry, my friend!" Given what little personality of Afton is explicitly shown in canon game series material, I was pleased to see Lillard convey Afton as someone who doesn't cower when threatened by Vanessa, his daughter, much less the children's spirits in the animatronics when they turn on him after learning the truth about him murdering them all. Lillard's performance and status as an actor are big reasons I feel the movie is underrated and, knowing what I know of the character in the game series, I can't wait to see how they portray him in the future.
One of the coolest aspects of this movie, in my opinion, is the amount of involvement of the FNaF community from YouTube that was both in the final movie and considered in development. YouTube, after all, is one of the biggest Internet platforms that bring indie titles like FNaF to popularity and I was there in mid-2014 when I discovered both the game and Markiplier through Mark's very first part of his FNaF1 playthrough -- titled: "WARNING: SCARIEST GAME IN YEARS | Five Nights at Freddy's - Part 1". With Mark basically being one of many catalysts that caused the first game to explode in popularity within its first month (August 2014), it's no surprise that he was initially considered to be the nightguard in the intro that tries to escape the pizzeria before being cornered and murdered by the animatronics. Sadly, Mark has been hard at work on his film, Iron Lung, for the last few years and hasn't, that we know, been able to cameo in the movies, but him being heavily considered says something about his contribution to the state of the franchise. That said, the most notable YouTube talent that actually appears in the movie is the ever-popular MatPat of Game Theory making a cameo as the waiter named Ness in the scene where Aunt Jane and the vandals gather for a meeting at the fictional diner of Sparky's. I didn't initially pay close enough attention to who the waiter was in his couple shots, but as soon as he said his iconic outro line -- "that's just a theory" -- my eyes immediately locked in and I realized it was the face of MatPat. His appearance was especially cool because after the years he spent as the main game theorist who heavily analyzed and painstakingly pieced together the game series FNaF timeline for years on end until his retirement last year, it is a very meta thing that he, himself, became a canon character in the movieverse of FNaF of all things. Despite Markiplier not appearing quite yet, the most exciting cameo apart from MatPat was without a doubt Cory Williams (better known to the Internet as CoryxKenshin); he appears as the taxi driver that gets Abby to the pizzeria alongside Golden Freddy toward the climax and, much like his many videos of him playing horror games on YouTube, he is easily jumpscared by the appearance of Golden Freddy. I, personally, have not seen many of his videos -- mostly snippets of his reactions in compilations of FNaF YouTubers reacting to significant moments throughout the games -- but the fact that he got to appear as the representative of the FNaF Let's Player community was certainly exciting for fans such as myself. The fact that he gets genuinely jumpscared by Balloon Boy in the mid-credits scene unlike Mike makes for a cheeky fun moment of him reacting to the horrors and creepy imagery of the franchise in a way that's reminiscent of his reactions to the games themselves. To top it all off, the end credits song is the ever-popular smash hit titled "Five Nights at Freddy's" by The Living Tombstone; I had heard this song a few times throughout the years and the fact that it was made within a month of the first game coming out while managing to get much of the now-established lore correct really says something about its success. Using it in the movie is completely fitting because of how much this first movie represents the first game as far as its scenario with the children being forced to possess the animatronics. I have always leaned more toward NateWantsToBattle's rock songs, especially his FNaF ones, and while it would have been cool if they put one of Nate's songs in the credits, I won't deny that The Living Tombstone's song is more popular and recognizable than anything Nate has done. With this much involvement from the community that helped build the FNaF fandom throughout the last decade as well as the movie's box office success, it's clear that the movie, despite its drawbacks, has a supportive community backing it even in the production side of things and I'm ever-excited to see what representation gets used going forward.
All in all, this first Five Nights at Freddy's movie, despite being lackluster in some areas, shows that the biggest video games of all time can have successful movies in the eyes of the fans and general public. Even with less emphasis on horror and jumpscares than its source material, there's enough fanservice for fans to enjoy, the minimal use of VFX and authentic animatronics are very refreshing in the landscape of modern filmmaking, the actors, while mid to some degree, deliver good to great performances, and the amount of FNaF YouTube talent present treats fans to the exciting potential of this film franchise. If I wasn't a fan of the games and lore already, I may have ended up not giving this movie any other chances because of how un-scary it was; there's a chance that most critics misunderstand that not every horror movie has to be knock-your-socks-off scary to be entertaining, but rather have the right amount of intrigue and subtle gruesome details for people to get invested. I, for one, watched this less because I wanted to get scared and more because I'm a fan and that I hoped it would give us a solid representation of the Five Nights at Freddy's lore that has been theorized and debated about for so many years already. Sure, there were attempts at jumpscares here and there, but they didn't hit as hard as the games, something I'm hoping they can refine going forward. Even with this movie's less-than-stellar aspects, a franchise like Five Nights at Freddy's, no doubt, has a great amount of film potential and this first movie serves as a good enough hook for those who are curious or who aren't familiar with the games. With all that said and my anticipation for the sequel ever-growing until December, I give this movie a C- and recommend it to fans, newcomers, and most people who just enjoy an intriguing mystery over jumpscares.
Thank you all for reading and I will see you in the next review!
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