After nine long years, from a simple indie horror game in 2014 and now in 2023 fans can finally be jumpscared again in Five Nights at Freddy’s the movie! To start off, Five Nights at Freddy’s(FNAF) is a popular horror game where you play as a security guard on night duty at a children’s pizza place, but the animatronics come to life during that time, and it’s the players job to survive all five nights. After nine games, fans were surprised to hear about the unexpected announcement of the FNAF movie.
When entering the theater, I witnessed swarms of fans (some in cosplay) gathering to see the movie, and they clapped during the beginning and ending of the movie. People were talking a lot through this movie, and I never witnessed such a loud audience in my life, since multiple groups were constantly interrupting the most serious scenes. It was distracting yet entertaining.
The movie’s plot separates itself from the main lore of the games altering facts like the characters names or relationships, so many things that were previously known by fans were basically thrown out the window, especially since there are videos on the internet longer than the movie explaining the lore. Although the basic things that make up FNAF stayed, everything else was shuffled around to fit into a movie which I think it’s fine because of the plot twists, but it mildly upset me on the inside.
One of the best parts about the movie is the animatronics themselves (Foxy, Chica, Freddy, and Bonnie), though only Foxy was an actual robot, the rest had such amazing costumes they really did look machine-likem and the actors would have fooled me. These characters had no voice line, yet with only movements, they showed individual personalities among each animatronic and truly shows it isn’t a simple acting role. The music was also amazing, having children sing the introduction song matched perfectly with the theme and playing the Living Tombstone song at the end was very nostalgic since it’s one of the first fan songs made in the same year the first game released.
A missing element of the movie would be the lack of horror in a thriller movie. I know the movie is sadly PG 13, but one of the many things that make up FNAF is jump scares which disappointingly the movie didn’t have enough of. Another problem with the lack of horror is that in one scene the animatronics completely switched from creepy to cute and disregarded the eerie theme they built up.
In conclusion, the movie did an amazing job wrapping up a simple mobile indie game into a 2 hour movie. Although, I get that some people who haven’t played the games wouldn’t understand the movie and its lengthy lore. The film has brought childhood nostalgia from growing up in the early 2000s and was still very entertaining to say the least.
