The popular “Five Nights at Freddy’s” franchise has skyrocketed in popularity since its release in 2023, with the new movie earning many new fans and making around $297 million worldwide from ticket sales alone, with a $20 million dollar production budget. Many know FNAF from the series of horror games made by Scott Cawthon, who released the first game in August of 2014 and made the first four FNAF games as a solo developer. He later expanded to a larger development team and helped with the behind-the-scenes of both movies as a co-writer and producer and also oversaw the casting decisions.
The movie begins with a character, Mike Schmidt, played by Josh Hutcherson, who takes a night job as a night guard at an old, rundown pizzeria, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. He works there so he can financially support his younger sister, Abby, while their aunt tries to take custody of her. One night, while Mike is working, he ends up having to bring Abby with him since he could not find have a babysitter. While Abby is there, he learns that the animatronics are “haunted” by the ghosts of the kids killed at the Pizzeria and also become hostile at night.
Towards the end of the movie, I liked the last few scenes that took place inside the Pizzeria. I especially liked the scene where the electricity is restored, and the animatronics see Abby’s drawing that shows what actually happened to them, and realize what William had done. After the animatronics pieced together that it was William who murdered them, they turn their focus from Abby and Mike to William. After that, he gets springlocked by his yellow bunny suit and slowly dies while the animatronics shut down and become dormant in the pizzeria.
Overall, as I watched the movie, I didn’t really have any strong feelings about it, but I did like the animatronics and also enjoyed how they were puppeteered rather than using CGI as most movies do in the modern age. However, I did like how they hand-made each animatronic, and they were both wearable and remotely controlled, which to me felt more authentic rather than greenscreening a Freddy Fazbear. Aside from that, I also felt pretty mediocre about the storyline, especially about Mike’s backstory. To me, it was pretty boring and not that descriptive, especially with most of the movie being centered around his younger brother going missing and Mike wanting to find out how to get him back. I also didn’t entirely enjoy a lot of Vanessa’s storyline, especially with the addition that she was William Afton’s daughter. To me, it felt like the writers were just trying to relate her to the lore somehow, when she played a much different role in the other FNAF games.
As much as I would like to give it a full rating just for being a movie adaptation of a well-known video game that I myself play a lot, I would only give it a 4 out of 10.
