Fans of the horror game franchise “Five Nights at Freddy’s” (FNAF) have been waiting more than 8 years for a movie. Now that it’s finally here, it’s not what audiences were expecting.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s” follows the story of Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson), a security guard who has been fired from his previous job after a misunderstanding. As a result, Mike accepts a job offer from career coach Steve Raglan (Matthew Lillard) as the only security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Mike needs this job to make sure his Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson) can’t take custody of his younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio), as it’s implied that Jane only wants Abby for the monthly check she’ll receive from the state.
While working there, Mike meets Vanessa, a local cop, with a mysterious connection to the old pizzeria. Throughout the movie, Mike deals with personal issues, like his custody battle for Abby and past trauma, as well as the animatronics at his job, who seem to have gained sentience.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s” is based off of a series of horror games, so you would expect it to be a horror movie, which is how it’s categorized on GQTmovies.com, but truth be told, it’s just not that scary. In fact, at some points it can get oddly wholesome and heartwarming, which isn’t at all what you expect when you watch a movie that’s supposed to scare you.
It’s important to acknowledge that the movie has a PG-13 rating, so it was never going to be as horrific and gory as other R-rated, more frightening movies. When watching a scary movie, however, you expect a certain amount of spooks, which we only get in one of the few death scenes.
With a franchise like “Five Nights at Freddy’s”, which practically invented a new genre of horror games, having the movie fall flat of its horrific reputation is a little disappointing. That’s not to say that it is a bad movie, it just isn’t what you would expect a FNAF movie to be.
In fact, the movie was quite enjoyable if considered independent of the game franchise.
The story of the movie itself is interesting, as it takes the base storyline from the games and changes it for a movie format, which makes sense. FNAF is notorious for having a complicated and confusing story that seems to change drastically with every game as new lore is revealed, so simplifying the story for a new version is logical. It stays loyal to the original story of working as a night guard at a diner full of creepy animatronics where 4 children mysteriously disappeared.
The character relationships are charming and the animatronics are really well-made and fun to watch. The soundtrack for this movie is also amazing. The end credit song stands out especially because it is the famous fan-created song “Five Nights at Freddy’s” by The Living Tombstone, a band that’s well-known for their fan-music of different franchises.
Something a lot of fans enjoyed about the movie is the cameo made by Matthew Patrick, also known as MatPat, from the YouTube channel Game Theory. MatPat is known by FNAF fans for the extensive video series he’s made theorizing about the story of FNAF.
In the movie, he makes a brief cameo as a restaurant waiter and says his famous line “but that’s just a theory.”
Well-known Youtuber Markiplier, who has been called “The King of FNAF,” was supposed to have a cameo as well, but he was too busy at the time filming his own movie, “Iron Lung.”
The FNAF movie is a fun, enjoyable movie, although not the horror movie that is expected. It’s a good movie with good characters and a good storyline, but it strays just a little bit too much from the source material, making the sequel something to look forward to, but not good enough for opening day tickets.
