A new movie from the already cult horror film company Blumhouse Productions is being released – a film adaptation of the video game of the same name, Five Nights at Freddy’s. Read on in our review to find out whether the filmmakers managed to impress or at least scare the audience.
A little background
In 2014, American video game developer Scott Cawthon released the video game Five Nights at Freddy’s. The player had to make sure that his avatar guardian of an abandoned pizzeria, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, survived until 6 am, escaping from bloodthirsty animatronics – giant robotic plush toys.
The game was in great demand and earned a large fan base, so it was only a matter of time before a media franchise was created on its basis. In almost 10 years, several sequels to the game have been created, as well as three novels, a TV series, and, of course, a lot of merchandise.
It is interesting that they wanted to make a movie based on the game almost immediately after its release – in 2015, the movie giant Warner Bros. Pictures. It was immediately announced that Cawthon himself would help the team of directors and screenwriters work on the film, but eventually the process stalled and in 2017 the rights were transferred to the already cult horror film company Blumhouse Productions (Paranormal Activity, Astral, Split, Get Out, Us, Halloween, Freaky, The Black Phone, M3GAN and many other successful horror films).
At the same time, Blumhouse founder and chairman Jason Blum announced that he would produce the film himself, with Cawthon helping with the script. At the same time, Gil Keenan (Poltergeist), who had previously been announced as the film’s director, announced his withdrawal from the project. Initially, in 2018, he was replaced by Chris Columbus (the first three Harry Potter films), and he even developed a script for the film. However, Cawthon “turned this version around” and instead promoted his own vision. As a result, Columbus left the project, and in 2021, Emma Tammy, who had previously worked on some episodes of the horror anthology Into the Dark and directed the horror film The Wind, was announced as the film’s director.
Finally, in 2023, the film adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy’s, born in agony, was released.
What the new movie is about
The film centers on Mike Schmidt, whose life is not going well, to put it mildly. He still relives every night a terrible episode from his childhood that changed the lives of his entire family forever. At the same time, he is raising his younger sister Abby, who prefers to socialize with imaginary friends to her peers, with varying success, while their self-serving Aunt Jane tries to sue for custody.
Mike is also constantly fired from his job, no matter who he gets, due to lack of discipline and conflicts. And when it seems that he will not be hired anywhere else, Mike gets a lifeline in the form of a job as a night watchman at the once successful abandoned family entertainment center Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.
It seems like the perfect job – no need to communicate with anyone and no one to report to. However, Mike soon discovers to his dismay that the four animatronic mascots – Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chick and Foxy – can do more than just sing and dance to the disco ball. In fact, they are bloodthirsty killing machines who also want to capture Mike’s sister.
Now Mike has to not only save himself and Abby, but also unravel the mysteries of his own past and the origin of the Animatrons.
It’s worth noting that although the movie is based on a video game, its plot and main characters do not always follow the original.
There is also a small funny scene between the credits, which, however, does not play any important role.
Who’s in the lead roles
The role of Mike Schmidt in the film was played by Josh Hutcherson, best known to our audience for his leading role as Peeta Mellark in The Hunger Games series. After the release of the last film in the franchise in 2015, Hutcherson disappeared from the mainstream audience, mostly playing in low-budget films and TV series, but perhaps Five Nights at Freddy’s will give his career a new impetus.
The film also stars Piper Rubio (TV series Unstable), Elizabeth Leal (TV series You), Matthew Lillard (Scream, She’s All That, Scooby-Doo) and Mary Stuart Masterson (Benny & Joon, Mean Girls).
Reaction to the film
The UK was the first to release the film on October 25, 2023, and on October 27, it will be released in the US and simultaneously on the Peacock streaming service.
Based on the first 127 reviews, the film has a score of 6.9 out of 10 on IMDb.
Meanwhile, early box office forecasts suggest that the film will gross up to $33-42 million on its opening weekend and $60-90 million for the overall weekend. This will be enough to cover the film’s development costs of $25 million.
At the same time, Scott Cawthon has previously stated that if the movie is successful, two more films based on the second and third games of the series will be released. Moreover, in early 2023, actor Matthew Lillard announced that he had signed a contract with the studio for three films in the series.
Our verdict
The movie Five Nights at Freddy’s evokes rather contradictory impressions. On the one hand, it has a really good quality picture and an interesting basic idea. The film also has decent atmospheric music, which was created by The Newton Brothers – they created the soundtracks for most of Mike Flanagan’s projects, including his Netflix series “The Haunting of Hill House”, “The Haunting of Bly Manor”, “Midnight Mass”, “The Midnight Club” and “The Fall of the House of Usher“.
On the other hand, there are questions about the realization – it seems that those 8 years of vicissitudes on the way to its creation did affect the final result. It seems that a lot of things were mixed in the movie, but at the same time they revealed it all half-heartedly. The movie is not scary enough to be considered a one hundred percent horror that will make you shudder all the time, and there is not enough humor in it to put it into the category of comedy horror.
At the same time, many important points are not fully disclosed to the audience – those who are not familiar with the original game will have many questions about the emergence of animatronics and other cause-and-effect relationships in the movie. Perhaps the creators have saved this for the next movie, but what we have now raises too many questions.
The overall score is 6 out of 10 points.
