Five Nights at Freddy's (Mini-Review)

Five Nights at Freddy's is an adaptation of the popular horror franchise. Mike, even years later, reels from the abduction of his younger brother. He thinks that by going into his dreams that he can figure out what happened all those years ago. But waking life needs to be focused on too. Mike retains custody of Abby, his younger sister, and needs a job to keep it. Hence, with no other options, he takes the security guard position at abandoned Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. When he contacts the ghost children in his dreams, he thinks they are the way to find his brother. Five Nights at Freddy's was released in 2023. It was directed by Emma Tammi. It stars Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, and Piper Rubio.

There is a mid-credits scene showing what happened to the taxi driver. There is also something near the end that is a command from the villain of the movie.

It is great to see a movie go to such great lengths to get practical effects for the animatronics. Doing this has two great benefits. The first is that the actors are able to react to something that is actually right in front of them. The others is that the creepiness of the animatronics can clearly be felt by audience members. It was great seeing the animatronics being brought to the big screen in such a way.

I have endured the Five Nights at Freddy's novels and kept up somewhat with the lore of the series. The lore is basically tailored to keep people asking questions while never having solid answers. To this day there are major events in the series that haven't been answered yet. So to say that the lore is confusing is like saying the Halloween series timeline is a little messy. Yet this movie kept things relatively simple by keeping the focus on the first four games. But..the movie still fails at drawing you into the backstory of the series.

Mike's search for what happened to his younger brother takes up too much of the runtime. This movie is about haunted animatronics killing people so to keep attention away from that is insane. Fans are brought into even more new lore while horror fans don't get what was promised in the trailers. Even when Mike learns about the ghost children, he doesn't investigate the dark history of what he's guarding. I mean...who learns about murdered ghost children and doesn't want to investigate?

The only truly creepy moment was in the opening scene. It makes you want to figure out what is going on and how Mike will survive. So it's unfortunate with such a great opening that Freddy's doesn't feel unsafe. Mike sleeps most nights. Plus there's a fort building montage with the animatronics. I wouldn't even say this a gateway horror movie as there is such little horror. If you want a good gateway horror movie I would highly recommend the Fear Street trilogy on Netflix.

I would recommend Five Nights at Freddy's to fans of the franchise.