The potential was there, but like many other adaptions, Five Nights at Freddy’s falls short.
Video game adaptations are now at an all-time high. We once lived in a world where a video game being made into a movie happened once in a blue moon. Now, it seems that almost every major video game, at some point, was made into a movie. Not all video games are deserving, but Five Nights at Freddy’s could’ve been a decent film. The concept is relatively simple and has many building blocks to become a good film. Or, at the very least, be a decent horror film, as it became a standard for horror games. But sadly, like other video game movie adaptations, they seem to focus on other things that are not in the games.
Now, I’m all for originality and adaptations because that’s what keeps things fresh. But at the same time, this film, Five Nights at Freddy’s, spends way too much time on other plot points instead of the Freddie Fazbear animatronics and the lore.
Most of the movie is spent on PTSD memories of our main character, Mike Schmidt, played by Josh Hutcherson of Hunger Games fame. PTSD being one of the core elements of the film, it would make sense to show this. But it felt like nearly 20 or 30 minutes of the film were spent with our main character. Mike is reliving his PTSD over and over again. Without going into major spoilers, the PTSD itself could’ve been incorporated better with the Five Nights at Freddy’s World.
Now, the plot itself follows our main character, Mike, on his walk with his little sister, trying to find a job. He struggles with PTSD after his little brother was abducted in front of him. Eventually, he gets the job as Freddy Fazbear’s security guard, just like in the games. And just like in the games, things start to get a little strange as the animatronics come alive at night. At first, it seems like something small. Then, it starts to become a real issue, and real people get killed there.
Mike also meets Vanessa, who is played by Elizabeth Lail, a local cop who is one of the only human characters that crossed over from the games. Vanessa was in Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach. They both form a friendship along with Mike’s sister Abby, played by Piper Rubio. They all team together to stop the animatronics from doing more harm once they begin to cause trouble.
One thing I didn’t mention is that most of the film centers around Mike having these PTSD issues in the legal drama of losing his sister. But all of that seems not to matter at the end of the film, and to be honest, I forgot until I looked up most of the subplots. There was so much of this at the start of the film it felt like a different movie at times.
For me, once it got scary and we saw more of the animatronics, it felt like Five Nights at Freddy’s. Especially when it gets creepy when the animatronics start killing people. At some point, it was kind of surprising that they got away with some of the deaths, being a PG-13 film. A couple of the shots of the animatronics coming out of the dark with their eyes glowing were pretty creepy. They might have been able to get away with a little more, as PG-13 horror films in today’s world still have decent scares. Of course, in a perfect world, they would make an R-rated cut with the death and horror scenes being more drawn out. But there wasn’t enough time spent on this, or even the lore of the five nights in Freddy’s universe.
We got exposition dumps by Vanessa in random parts of the movie, which seemed very rushed and frustrating. It might have been fun to see some more flashbacks of Freddy Fazbear’s location instead of it all being in dialogue. Another good part to mention is the introduction. The film’s start sets the tone reasonably well and gives us a glimpse of what’s to come.
However, it takes a little bit to get going after that. Another highlight is Matthew Lillard, who plays Steve Raglan. It seems like they just let them go all out and kind of do whatever they want. Anytime he was on screen, it was a highlight, especially his last scene. I wish he were in the film a little bit more.
Overall, the acting isn’t necessarily bad in the film, and I did like Elizabeth Lail’s performance as Vanessa. And it was nice to see this character fleshed out a little bit. They kept her look pretty close to what it was in the game, so a lot of people will be able to recognize her from the first time they see her.
By the end of the film, there was a twist that might’ve been surprising for some, but for me, it didn’t make me feel that way. After the twist, the film seems to end abruptly, as most of the subplots do not seem to tie together, such as Mike’s legal issue with his sister and their living together, with the custody and all.
Minor Spoiler: A character dies in Mike’s house, and there’s no follow-up as to what follows that. Maybe she didn’t die, but the problem is that it’s never addressed later, so I don’t know what happened, I guess. It would’ve been nice to see some kind of resolution to their situation together (Mike and Abby). With all this being said, by the end, it feels very anti-climactic.
For me, I just wanted to see more time spent at Freddy Fazbear’s location and more scenes with the animatronics doing scary stuff. I mean, that’s why we all like Five Nights at Freddy’s, right? That’s what makes it so horrifying. I do like the attempt to keep us interested in the main character, given his traumatic past and all. But at the same time, it feels like they spent too much time on this, and it ended up hurting the movie more than helping it.
In the years to come, I believe this film will be another movie on the forgotten adaptations list. Just recently, we got the Uncharted film, which seemingly everyone has forgotten about as well. Both of these films had great potential and a large fan base, but they did not seem to hit the mark.
With that being said, though, I’m sure a lot of kids who are Five Nights at Freddy’s fans did not have problems with the movie and had fun. So, at least it was an enjoyable film for them, as it ended up with a solid opening weekend. It made enough money, and that’s all the studios need to keep making adaptations like this.
Well, this isn’t the worst adaptation of a video game. I’m more disappointed in it than anything, given the source material. It seemed that there could’ve been a lot of great things to come from this movie, but alas, I’m disappointed.
