Five Nights at Freddy's is a 2023 American horror film based on the video game series of the same name by Scott Cawthon. It's directed by Emma Tammi and it stars Josh Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard, Elizabeth Lali, Piper Rubio, and Mary Stewart Masterson. The film was in development since 2015 back when Warner Bros. had the film rights. Years later the film moved to Blumhouse studios. The film was released in both cinemas and at Peacock. Despite negative reviews, the film became a box office hit.
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Plot
The film tells the story about a troubled security guard having to work at a abandoned pizza restaurant where he discovers that the animatronic characters are possessed by the ghosts of murdered children.
Qualities That Weren't Ready For Freddy
- To get the pizza out of the box, the horror. Despite being a horror movie, it barely feels like one in the first place, as most of the film isn't horror enough and feels more like a dark mystery film at best. When the horror is shown, the horror elements are poor as many rely on cheap jumpscares that would either make you laugh unintentionally or get bored from the film. Heck, some of the jump scares can also be predictable enough.
- Most of the film doesn't take place in the pizza restaurant, as it's mostly just the characters talking. You see, every time that happens, it feels less like FNAF until it gets to the pizza restaurant. It's also worth noting that the gameplay in the series (especially since it's based on the first game of the series) is typically just you sitting down and having to survive the animatronics while in an office
- If you know enough about FNAF lore, the story is predictable, as the jump scares are predictable, and William Afton is the twist villain. Ads wanted viewers to hide away his villain arc when players would've easily known that he's the villain of the film, which should come as no surprise. The film also tries to make the lore of the dead children a secret when it should be predictable enough to know that they possess the animatronics.
- Aside from Cupcake, the animatronics barely feel utilized as they don't get enough screen time. Heck, they don't get to have enough kills as well. What's also baffling is that the animatronics are not threatening enough to be part of the conflict of the story due to clunky writing and lack of horror.
- The film is inconsistent as it can't decide its target audience. Does it want to be a dark yet whimsical kids' movie, or does it want to be a dark film for older audiences? It also can't decide whether it wants to be a horror movie. The subplot with Abby and the Animatronics does amp up the former.
- Thanks to the pacing, the film is a slog to sit through, especially when the film doesn't have scenes where the characters are at the pizzeria. The bloated story also contributed to the pacing as well.
- FNAF lore is notorious for being very complicated, thus making the film more story-driven and clunky, as it contributes to the poor pacing and the lack of animatronics. To make things worse, its lore doesn't please anyone who hasn't played any of the games before, thus making the story more messy and very difficult to please anyone. It's as if the film expects you to know enough FNAF or it wants to please lore cultists. To make things worse, the film had different plot points going on that it becomes a mishmash of stories.
- Aside from Matthew Lillard (especially in the climax), the acting isn't very good, as it feels complete.
- Thanks to the writing, the characters in the film turn out to be either bland or underdeveloped. Not even William Afton was that threatening due to his lack of presence in the film.
- At one point, the film wanted to put Abby at risk, and now Mike has to choose during the film involving Garrett. However, the weight and execution don't help much, as Mike still gets Abby, thus lowering the stakes. There is also another scene where Mike gets placed in a contraption that was used to kill another security guard, yet the story loses its stakes when you realize how predictable it was for the writing to show that Mike wouldn't die at the contraption.
- Some fans of the series were bummed out that William Afton, for some reason, has a daughter named Vanessa instead of Elizabeth, who is the daughter of Afton in the games.
- Plot holes:
- How can Abby communicate with the ghost children? The film could've explained how they can connect to living people.
- How did Golden Freddy visit Mike's house when the animatronics are supposed to not leave the pizzeria due to Afton's control?
- If you think about it, the police are pretty stupid in the film, as you would have to consider that William Afton killed the kids via the animatronics. In other words, why didn't the corpses of the kids inside the animatronics have a notable smell? Realistically enough, the corpses would stink after at least 24 hours.
- During the scene where Mike gets into a fight with a man, it's unclear how Mike didn't get arrested after assaulting a man. Yes, he loses his job, but there has to be some reason why he didn't face criminal charges. It was a misunderstanding, but he still shot first and asked questions later.
- It's also worth noting that the film wanted to set up a sequel, so they left specific plot points unanswered like what did Afton due to Garrett after the later got killed. Not only that, but FNAF lore makes these plot holes more complex.
- Anachronism:
- Believe it or not, the pizzeria has four arcade games released in after the 80s (Big Dog, Atari's Area 51, Cyclone, and Deep Sea Treasure) despite the movie taking place in 2000 while Freddy Fazbear's Pizza closed down supposedly before the 2000s and the mid to late 90s.
- When Abby was coloring her pictures, the markers she used were the Mondo Llama brand from Target, which had not been launched until circa 2021.
- Every time kills happen in the movie, the kills come off as rather cheap to the point of looking more ridiculous or lazy than terrifying. This also caused the climatic fate of William Afton to look silly somehow. This could be the fact that the film has a PG-13 rating while also giving a sloppy excuse for such rating, especially when even PG-13 films can have the ability to be more violent than you think if given the right hands, such as The Batman or even Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (which mind you the latter film had Rocket mauling someone before while the former has a deranged version of The Riddler).
- Lame and poor direction from Emma Tammi.
- Because of all these problems mentioned above, this movie is the antithesis of another bad video game film to the point where it almost damaged the reputation of the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise, and it is safe to say that the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise has declined in quality because of this film and it will never be as good as it was.
Qualities That Are Ready For Freddy
- The animatronics do look faithful design-wise, all thanks to Jim Henson's creature shop.
- The soundtrack is excellent, with The Living Tombstone's FNAF 1 song appearing at the end credits, which was a rather nice touch.
- The intro has a cool Atari 2600-esque pixel animation that fits FNAF well.
- Matthew Lillard was the best actor in the film as he carried it even if he didn't do much.
- The characters are still likable and enjoyable, such as Mike, the lawyer, or William Afton.
- Great set design for the pizzeria gives off the feel of an old-school abandoned place from the 80s.
- Despite its bloated story and unnecessary side plots, the chemistry between Abby and the Animatronics is pretty wholesome depending on your view.
- MatPat's cameo is pretty funny. The same can be said about CoryxKenshin's cameo.
- The concept of a FNaF movie is interesting and awesome, even if the actual movie didn't turn out so great.
- FNAF fans may like this film.
- Thankfully Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2 saved the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise two months after this movie came out, and was much better received by critics and audiences.
Reception
Despite being a success at the box office, the film has gotten negative reviews especially from people who were not into the series in the first place. FNAF fans on the other hand were pretty divided over the film as some liked it while others didn't really enjoy it that much. In general, the film was negatively reviewed by critics, but was mostly positively reviewed by audiences.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 32% critic score and a 88% on the audience score, while Metacritic gave it a score of 33 out of 100.
Trivia
- During production of the film, the movie had a lot of rewrites and different scrips until it got to it's final chosen script.
- The F screenplay. The premise is a group of teenage trouble-makers break into Freddy's thus chaos happens. It ended with a secret underground animatronic factory that was designing robots for the government.
- The Charlie screenplay. It would've been about Charlie and friends sneaking into Freddy's after-hours to retrieve a lost toy. Scrapped for being too much of a mixed bag of elements and too loosely based.
- The Silver Eyes screenplay. This one would've been based on the book of the same name. It was scrapped due to being too difficult to adapt and the writers wanted a film based on the games and not the FNAF books.
- The Pawn Shop screenplay. It would've been about a kid who watches after a pawn shop finds trouble when an animatronic is brought in. It turns out Freddy's had been robbed, and the animatronics were taken to different locations for sale. The other animatronics come to retrieve the one at the Pawn Shop, and the kid and his friends get roped into adventure. It was scrapped because it felt more like an after school adventure than a horror movie.
- The Cassidy screenplay. This one would've had Cassidy who is said to be one of the missing children Afton killed and thus being the spirit of Golden Freddy. THE movie spans multiple time-periods, follows multiple characters, and features lore from multiple games yet it was pretty saturated and thus felt more like a visual encyclopedia than a movie.
- The misfit kid screenplay. This one takes place in the present day and it's about a single mom bringing her kid to a new town. The kid finds Freddy's thus hilarity ensues. Was scrapped because it didn't work out well.
- The Ghost Trackers screen play. A group of amateur ghost-trackers sneak into the abandoned Freddy's. This one was scrapped due to feeling less like FNAF as the script didn't have a lot of FNAF material.
- The Insane Screenplay. Another ghost-tracker variation, this one involved the Funtime Animatronics, underground ball-pit tunnels, and a Marionette out for revenge! Was scrapped because it felt more like an action film and it had too many things going on.
- Many fans of the game thought that giving the animatronics glowing red eyes looked ridiculous thus making memes of the animatronics looking like they were on weed.
- During production, Foxy's arm got caught on fire at one point.
- It also spawned a fake film scene used for memes saying "together we are FNAF". Other memes spawned from the film including William Afton = Shaggy (because Matthew Lillard is known for playing and voicing Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo series), any meme involving Bonnie (including Bonnie fucking dies), Freddy's scream, Golden Freddy is Sans, Freddy's salute, I always come back, Look at you! Look at the SIGMAS you've become!, and Markiplier memes (despite Markiplier not appearing in the film)
- Matthew Lillard relied on director Emma Tammi's direction to know where to step due to wearing the yellow rabbit suit.
- Sparky, a fanmade hoax character from the early days of the first game receives official status in the film as a spare mascot costume lying around in the parts and service room.
- Though unclear weather or not Vanessa from Security Breach is the same Vanessa that appears in the movie, there were theories about Vanessa being related to Afton.
- Gil Kenan was intended to direct the film back when it was at Warner Bros. When the film moved to Blumhouse, Chris Columbus was intended to replaced Gil.
- Markiplier was intended to appear in the film. His role would've been a security guard that gets killed at the beginning of the film. Mark didn't show up due to scheduling conflicts in making a film based on a video game called Iron Lung.
- There was a rumor saying the film would be 3 hours long but it turned out to be false.
- Coincidentally enough Chuck E Cheese around the film's release month and date hosted a Halloween party called Fight Nights of Fun but the restaurant didn't want anyone to make references to FNAF during the festival. Heck, it was reported on X that there were people going to a local Chuck E. Cheese and vandalizing the place by inserting FNAF movie images around the place.
- Dave and Busters promoted the film by making the power cards have a FNAF theme and each card had a different animatronic.
- The Banana Splits Movie was rumored to be the retooled version of the Five Nights at Freddy's film that Warner Bros. was originally going to make.
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