Movie Breakdown: Five Nights At Freddy’s

Pre-Screening Stance:

I’ve never played the Five Nights At Freddy’s games, so I can’t speak to whether or not the film looks like it’s going to be a faithful adaptation. What I can note though is that it has large animatronic mascots that kill people, which seems like good fun.

Post-Screening Ramble:

Five Nights At Freddy’s is one of the least overall entertaining horror films I’ve come across in some time. I figured it was going to be somewhat like M3GAN in that it would be very self-aware and laced with humor, but instead it’s just slow and sad. The story is centered around Mike (Josh Hutcherson), who is all kinds of fucked up. You see, when he was a kid, his little brother went missing and he’s never been able to let it go. Now he sleeps all of the time and can’t hold down a job, which is particularly problematic since he’s also responsible for taking care of his younger sister. In an effort to turn things around, he accepts an overnight security gig at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza … where he mostly just sleeps on the job until he starts to realize something weird is going on in the supposedly abandoned building. This should be where I say that things get fun (or at the very least, interesting), but they don’t. Instead there’s a thinly veiled mystery of what’s going on combined with a few uninspired kills, plus a good bit more of Mike sleeping so that you can repeatedly experience his brother being kidnapped. Eventually, the bad guy in charge makes an appearance and “all” is revealed, but none of it is surprising. It is, however, a relief since it means you can move on to anything else. The film hits theaters and Peacock today, October 27.

One Last Thought:

Sure, there’s a lot in this movie that can be considered hard to believe, but the one thing that sticks out the most is that even though the main character works in an arcade, he mostly just sleeps and never plays a single game. I’d be up all night having a grand time.