“Five Nights at Freddy’s” was made to do one thing and one thing only. That was to entertain an audience of mostly children, and it succeeded at this beautifully. The “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie seems to break the mold, because of its seemingly simple source material.
While the first FNaF game might look simple to the untrained eye due to its less-than-flashy graphics and basic mechanics, there is an entire world of lore under the surface that this movie just scratches the surface of.
When we meet our main character Mike (Josh Hutcherson), he’s endeavoring to take care of his younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio) by any means necessary. After losing his job again, he lands in the office of Steve Raglan (Mathew Lillard), a career counselor who offers him the only job left in his repertoire. Mike takes up the mantle of night security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria.
The thing that sets this film apart from some other current horror flicks is the use of practical effects. While most productions would use CGI to bring their fantastical antagonist to life, Blumhouse Productions decided to construct the animatronics to bring the characters out of the game. This was the best possible option because it made them feel alive, like something you could actually see in real life and not some cartoonish monster.
While being a good and, frankly, a very enjoyable movie, it fell short in some aspects. One notable thing is the pacing. “Freddy’s” paces itself very well up until the last 20 minutes.
While this isn’t a huge problem, it makes the ending feel less put together like everything else. Up until the end the movie didn’t feel too fast or too slow and so you aren’t thinking about how much time is left.
As soon as the climax hits, however, it is like the movie is about to end and they are running out of time.
If they tacked even 20 more minutes on to the end it could have solved the problem and would have helped save some of that momentum from the first part of the film.
Overall, it’s a fun movie. It’s not going to win any Oscars or scare the pants off any-one because it’s rated PG-13, but it was a fun watch. For being a movie based on a game meant to scare children and remind teenagers of their childhoods, it does the job.
Grade: C
