by Linley Mueller, Staff Writer
After watching the new Five Nights at Freddy’s movie, I was sadly left with crushed expectations. The movie had a lot of hope surrounding it: the promotions promised jump scares and intense lore being shown on screen. Coming from the video games, these features were not hard to expect.
The movie seemed “off” of the games’ course. When walking into a movie based off of the video games, it is easy to expect that there are portrayals of the evil that come with the haunted animatronics. Instead, the movie gave them the personalities of the children within, which could have been accurate to the game, had they appeared to be more violent. Because this movie was rated PG-13, it was a little less likely that the in-game deaths would be shown in a real-life setting. This is why that aspect is something that I could forgive.
When the movie started, the references were accurate. But things started to change with the plot of Mike losing his brother and searching for how to bring him back. Then, it was introduced that Mike’s aunt wanted custody of his sister! Continuing in a different direction from the games, Mike had dreams of the kids that haunt the animatronics. Because of Mike’s internal anguish about his brother being kidnapped, this was an interesting addition to the plot, but it didn’t make too much sense when combined with the rest.
One of the parts that I enjoyed was that Josh Hutchinson played “Phone Guy”! His performance was very convincing. Also, MatPat and Cory Kenshin being in this movie was crazy! For an audience full of long-time fans, this felt very fitting! Because of MatPat’s “Game Theory” and Cory Kenshin’s gameplay, Five Nights at Freddy’s became a more well-known game. The Five Nights at Freddy’s online cult following seemed to appreciate the appearances of the people they grew up watching on YouTube. Also, I will say that this movie did have it right with set design! They nailed the placement of the animatronics and their appearances. This was the part that I enjoyed seeing the most.
The thing is, this movie didn’t need to be a cinematic masterpiece in the first place. Though, there were things that could have been done better. Taking more inspiration from the games, such as more use of the vents or jumpscares, would have made a positive impact. The creation of a movie to represent suchan iconic piece in media should have been iconic as well! Some of the plot got a little lost alongside the point of the game: to scare people. This fear is originally induced by the jumpscares a security guard faces while working at a haunted pizzeria. The side story of Mike and Vanessa getting close and sharing personal information with each other made me a bit confused. Another part of this confusion came from the characters that had been hired by the woman who planned to take custody of Mike’s younger sister. This was where I found the movie not very engaging. I thought this movie could have provided the specific form of horror entertainment it had promised, but it did not replicate the games in this way.