Warning: Spoilers ahead. 

By Sam Beckler

With expectations high, lights off, dog sitting next to me on the couch, I pressed play for the newly released Five Nights at Freddy’s movie.

Directed by Emma Tammi, Five Nights at Freddy’s is based on Scott Cawthon’s 2014 horror video game, Five Nights at Freddy’s. The game’s main idea is that you are working as a security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a pizza restaurant with large animal animatronics meant for kids, inspired by Chuck E. Cheese. The animatronics come alive at night and slowly work their way towards your office. If they reach your office, you die and lose the game. You work the night shift, from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m., and once you reach 6:00 a.m., you win the night. As the name may suggest, you must survive five nights, each more difficult than the last.

An animatronic moving while on camera, from the videogame Five Nights at Freddy’s 1. Image credit: Google Play.

Cawthon created nine games in the Five Nights at Freddy’s series, each revealing more about the story behind the animatronics. In the lore of the game, there were two owners of the restaurant chain, William Afton and Henry Emily. Afton’s child was terrified of the animatronics, and his brother jokingly forced his head into the mouth of one of the robots. The robot then closed its jaw, killing the child instantly. Afton then discovered that the soul of his child lived on in the animatronic, and the child was able to control the robot. He was then driven mad trying to understand how a human’s consciousness could be transferred to the animatronics. Afton ends up killing many more children to understand the anomaly.

The animatronics turn to look at the camera in the videogame version. Image credit: u/Springtrapattacks on Reddit.

The Five Nights at Freddy’s movie is set sometime in the future, after Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza has closed down due to safety concerns. The main character, Mike, played by Josh Hutcherson, lives with his younger sister, Abby, played by Piper Rubio. Mike has frequent flashbacks to a scene in the woods where he watches his younger brother get kidnapped. Each time he returns to this dream, he tries to discover the man who took his brother from him. Mike has had a troubled life ever since his brother was kidnapped. His career counselor offers him a job working as a night guard at the abandoned Freddy Fazbear’s. Mike falls asleep on the job and tries yet again to solve the mystery of his kidnapped brother in his dream. One day, he decides to bring Abby to work with him. He wakes up to her screams in the middle of the night and finds her playing with the animatronics, who are very much alive.

Anna building a fort with the animatronics in the film.
Photo credit: Blumhouse Productions and Universal Pictures. 

Mike’s dreams progressively become stranger as a group of children appears around him, giving him hints about his brother’s disappearance. Mike discovers that the children in his dream are the same children that were killed by the animatronics years ago and inhabit them to this day. One night, the animatronics lure Abby to the diner in hopes of killing her. Mike rushes to stop them and discovers the man behind it all, William Afton. Afton had been controlling the animatronics and reveals that he was the one who kidnapped Mike’s brother all those years ago. Mike and Abby’s only hope for survival is convincing the children in the animatronics that Afton was the one that caused them all their pain. They manage to do so by drawing pictures of the things Afton has done, and the animatronics turn on Afton and kill him.

Mike’s career counselor, who turns out to be William Afton, from the film. Photo credit: Blumhouse Productions and Universal Pictures. 

Having played the games in the past, I thought the plot of the movie did not align very well with the story that the video games provide. The animatronics were meant to be these terrifying amalgamations of robot and flesh that move only when you aren’t looking. Instead, the movie portrayed them as having the mentality of the children possessing them. The animatronics end up building a fort with Abby and playing hide and seek, not stalking her down in the most terrifying way imaginable. Every aspect of the games was meant to be terrifying, but the movie does very little to match that same horror.

Animatronic jumpscare from the game Five Nights at Freddy’s 4. Photo credit: BJ Colangelo.

This may be because I had high expectations, but I did not enjoy the plot very much. It felt very dry and predictable. Several scenes made attempts at having a surprising twist but fell short. The plot also seems to jump around quite a bit, which can be a bit confusing at times. The constant change of plot creates forgettable scenes and disappointing scares. Similarly, in his two-star review of the movie for rogerebert.com, Simon Abrams states that “it might have helped if the movie’s programmatic jump scares and mostly unremarkable performances were more memorable.” I would recommend this movie to anyone who is either not familiar or not very knowledgeable about the games it is based on. I agree with the IMDB rating of 5.5/10, and the movie would have been far better had I watched it with no background information to compare to.

Featured image credit: Blumhouse Productions and Universal Pictures.