MOVIE TITLE:
Five Nights at Freddy’s
IMDB YEAR RELEASED:
2023
GENRE:
Supernatural / Horror
STARRING:
Josh Hutcherson / Elizabeth Lail / Piper Rubio / Mary Stuart Masterson / Matthew Lillard
DIRECTED BY:
Emma Tammi
SUMMARY:
A young man takes a job at the now defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, a former Chucky Cheese-type emporium with arcade games and fast food, as night security to help in the care of his younger sister, little knowing that the animatronic figures on stage house angry spirits that are destined to stir haunting memories.
TAGLINES:
Can you survive?
When the night shift starts, the nightmare begins.
PLOT:
In the opening scene, the viewer sees a security guard frantically attempt escape of a room. He doesn’t quite make it. He awakes strapped to a chair set in front of a mask with gears and teeth seemingly designed to destroy a face. The gears begin to rotate as the mask gets placed over the face. (The movie is PG-13, so most of the kills are relatively sanitized for the audience.)
Security guard Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) is working at a mall when he sees a boy that looks lost, when a man approaches and grabs the kid. Schmidt believing that he’s witnessed an abduction, beats the man. He gets fired because the man was the boy’s father.
Steve Raglan (Matthew Lillard), Mike’s career counselor, rattles off Mike’s checkered unimpressive employment history before offering him a final employment opportunity as night security for a pizzeria. Because of the night hours, Mike originally rejects the job. He has custody of his younger sister, but when social services threaten to give custody to his aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson), who really seems interested in the monthly stipend for Abby (Piper Rubio).
His first night on the job, Mike falls asleep and dreams of his brother, Garrett’s kidnapping, explaining a little bit why Mike reacted so violently to the perceived abduction. There are five children in Mike’s dream that appear to have witnessed the kidnapping of Garrett, but they all run away when Mike tries to question them.
Auntie Jane is really a villainous character. She hires thugs to vandalize Freddy’s in order to hasten her acquisition of her niece, Abby, one of which is Abby’s babysitter. That night, Mike meets Vanessa Shelly, a friendly police office who used to frequent Freddy’s as a kid. She is surprisingly knowledgeable of the history of the place along with the pizzeria’s closing as a consequence of five missing children.
In the morning, Mike returns home and the vandals break in. There’s a slight problem. The animatronic mascots of Freddy Fazbear’s pizzeria emporium come to life and are decidedly unhappy with the invasion and kill the vandals in imaginative ways.
That night, when Abby’s babysitter doesn’t show, Mike decides to take his sister with him to Freddy’s. Mike again falls asleep after putting his sister to bed in a makeshift tent in the security office. She wakes to find the animatronic figures revived. She is unafraid and they bond with her in a protective way. Through that bond she finds out that the animatronic figures are inhabited by the souls of the five children and they want Abby to join them.
As always there is more but I will leave you to check it out if it strikes your fancy. Let’s move to my review.
REVIEW:
Fans of the video games and books have already fallen in love with this movie franchise that released during the Halloween season last year. (This will be a movie franchise. Blumhouse has already made plans for FNAF 2. Filming is scheduled and should have already begun. Also, a #3 is anticipated for 2026.) So if you are a fan, I am happy for you. If you are not a fan, we should talk.
FNAF is not a true hardcore horror movie. The animatronic “monsters” were made by the Jim Henson studio. The movie is PG-13 which means few expletives, no nudity, and very little blood, NO gore. The movie has some intense scenes, but it wasn’t scary. Just before the hammer is about to drop, or the torture device is going to destroy a face, the camera cuts to another scene.
The movie has some really good acting, the music is intense where it needs to be, the sound design is very good, the set is perfectly reminiscent of a creepy Chucky Cheese or a scary Dave and Buster’s for kids. The directing is well done with perfect framing and innovative camera angles.
I like the movie. I understand why production chose to play safe on the horror elements. When you already have a PG fanbase, you don’t want to alienate your base for the sake of an untried and new (more horrific) paradigm. However, for people like me raised to expect gory slasher kills, this movie is tame.
This movie is more for your friends that don’t like horror, but are looking for a gateway into more intense grit or noir. Again, I’m not saying that there are no scares, just that there are not enough of them. Still, I will rate it for what it wants to be, not what I wanted it to be.
I think the story is a little schizophrenic. Again, I like it and believe you don’t have to know about the subculture and fandom of FNAF. I didn’t and I didn’t feel lost at all. Because it’s good and fun, perfect for a kids sleepover or for a date night, three and a half Grey Geeks.
The movie is available on Amazon Prime. I saw it last night and had some Halloween fun. You should, too. I think that’s it for me. As always, I thank you for checking out the post. The Mustache and the Beard are grateful. Stay safe. Take it easy. See you later. Peace!
The Mustache and The Beard 