Notes

Five Nights at Freddy's Movie Review
Five Nights at Freddy's has a lot going for it: a popular and respected indie video game franchise that quickly spawned a massive fanbase for its mysterious and cryptic story, a set of adorably creepy animatronic characters that look like children but behave like homicidal maniacs at night, and plenty of classic horror-movie tropes. So it's a bit of a disappointment that the film adaptation, a collaboration between Universal and Blumhouse, isn't able to fully translate those strengths to the big screen.

Directed by Only For Love and written by Scott Cawthon and Seth Cuddeback, the movie tells the story of Mike, a young man who finds work as a security guard at a cursed old pizzeria and family entertainment center run by animatronic mascot creatures whose owner has gone missing. It's a spooky setting, and the animatronics have all the trappings of a modern slasher flick: a harrowing backstory, an unsettlingly mechanical gait, a collection of jump scares. And yet, the movie never manages to make those elements gel, falling into a trap of excessive exposition and unremarkable jump scares.

The biggest problem is that the filmmakers don't really seem to understand what made the games so successful, and what makes them tick. They try to cram too much in, focusing on a baffling plot and backstory for their protagonist while neglecting the animatronics themselves. The result is a flabby 110 minutes that feels padded with dream sequences, a whole lot of exposition and a first act buildup that's utterly devoid of tension.

In addition, the film relies too heavily on the dreary, sleazy atmosphere of an old, run-down business, and the animatronics' ominous appearances feel more like a gloomy daytime vignette than a nightmare. As a result, they lose the genuinely scary potential of their setting and fall into a sleazy trap of cheap exploitation.

While the film does offer a few jolts of suspense, it's too late to save the movie from its eventual demise. Even with its slack-jawed lead performance from Josh Hutcherson, it's just too lukewarm to be memorable in the long term.

With a few more iterations and a lot of creative revisions, this could have been a surprisingly good horror-comedy. But after years of delays, it's a shame that the final product ends up being such a disappointing misfire. Whether it's horror without much horror, comedy without any comedy, or a series of lore dumps that are simply too heavy-handed, Five Nights at Freddy's is a missed opportunity.
Website: https://www.gg-series.com/only-for-love-2023.html