One thing we know, Hollywood get video game adaptations. They have a stellar reputation as cinematic titans with in-depth knowledge of the source material and a genuine interest in telling the story. Five Nights At Freddy’s joins that club with a genuinely baffling tone, almost comical storyline, zero scares but excellent production design and technical craft.
Mike (Josh Hutcherson) lives with his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) after the death of their parents and the kidnapping of their son. This is something Mike blames himself for, as he was meant to be looking out for his brother at the time. This guilt is manifested in nightmares almost every night, reliving the events and being obsessed with trying to find out who took him. While he’s not dreaming, he’s a basically unemployable security guard, only lasting months in each position.
This all changes when the ominous Matthew Lillard offers him a night security job at Freddy Fazbear’s pizzeria. This is a closed restaurant, where the owners pay to keep it open out of nostalgia (?). Mike works nights, and experiences his nightmares while on the job, but this time, in the scenario, he’s joined by five children who he doesn’t recognise. He must find out who they are, and how they connect to the disappearance of his brother and how it all relates the Freddy’s pizzeria and balance being a forced father figure to his sister and all this while his comically evil aunt (Mary Stuart Masterson) tries to take custody of Abby in order to be paid child benefit.
So the story is a mess, while the main concept is fine, it feels like they had 10 script writers who all wrote their own plotlines and then weaved them together, shrugged and shot the film. I don’t have a problem with any of the main cast, Josh brings a leading horror performance with classic scared faces, empathy for his sister and what feels like a genuine care to tell the story. I think the film could have benefitted from him being given a bit more charisma in his dialogue, but he was passable in what he was given. We also get a fine performance by Piper as Abby. Its a good time for child actors, who recently have been written into films in the most annoying manner. Matthew Lillard is obviously great in his few moments, no need to say more. There are some really really bad side characters and a very overacted and exaggerated antagonist in Mary’s performance as Aunt Jan.
The scares are few and far between, with some jumpscares at the beginning, and then a complete lack of any horror until the very final twenty minutes of the film. Some of the scares are done well, with some okay tension being introduced. The film definitely lacked the panic and movement within the shadows which makes the games so effective in their scares.
A lot of the inclusion of the scares feels like fan service to the games, which at times goes over casual viewers' heads. There were some clearly targeted moments, even outside of scares that feel very jammed into the story.
Technically, the film is pretty solid, it has some pretty good camera work in the pizzeria especially. They light the space really well and create some scale within.
The star of the show is truly the work done with the Jim Henson company to create the fully functional animatronics. They are incredibly detailed and just look impressive in their creation. My only issue is when these are replaced with humans in the suits, keeping the practical element but the movement becomes a bit too fluid, juxtaposed from the previous scenes of them slowly moving. I think the film could have worked a lot better if they had left it to just the animatronics and changed their approach to scares.
I also wish they changed their approach to the characters of these animatronics in general, halfway through, our perception is flipped entirely and all scare factor is lost. They make some of them a bit silly or clumsy in those middle scenes.
Video game adaptations do have their reputation, but with a pretty fleshed out story from the games, this one should have been able to easily join in the club of good ones. Instead, they opted for a story too concerned with ideas and not enough time to expand on them, leading to a complete lack of detail or time to connect to these characters. They also forgot the scares, which is a pretty integral part of the franchise.
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