7 years ago, I transferred middle schools. One thing that the students at this new school played that the other didn’t was a survival horror game called Five Nights at Freddy’s. I immediately fell in love with the game. Many of this new class knew what this game was and my new friend group was always talking about it, while no one in the old class had a clue as to what it was. Fast forward to this October 27th and the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie comes out. After 10+ games and a plethora of books, the creator, Scott Cawthon, finally released a movie, which I was dying to see ever since I first asked “What’s Five Nights at Freddy’s?”
In the movie, Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) witnessed his younger brother Garrett get kidnapped when he was very young. Ever since that night, he has a recurring dream where he scans for clues to find this criminal. However, he takes on a Night Shift at, guess where, Freddy’s Pizzeria. He does this in order to look better for a court case on the guardianship of his sister Abby. Ever since he goes to the worn down 80’s pizzeria, this reoccurring dream changes as if he is closer to finding who took his missing brother. I would inform you more about this movie, but I’m sure some of you wouldn’t want me spoiling the rest. Ever since the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was rumored to come out over three years ago, many were excited for it to finally hit the theaters. However, setback after setback caused this dream of finally getting a movie for this extravagant series seemed to flow farther away each passing day. Until October 27th of this year, when this dream was finally released to the public so the general audience can enjoy a thriller movie with the family and the investigative, life-long enthusiasts can scavenge any clues to uncover more about this mysterious series.
Overall, I loved both aspects of this movie. Watching this movie with people that wouldn’t consider themselves Five Nights at Freddy’s fans loved it, and with the movie not fully correlating to the game franchise I felt like I was with them learning of this new reality for the first time.
For example, this whole concept of the recurring dream is completely new in the series, and I do believe it makes the movie more interesting and worth watching. I doubt they had many options to base off a movie after games where you watch monitors and barely move, but I was glad when they took this approach to create a plot filler.
Based on that, I loved how simple this plot was for something they could have gone more in-depth and lore-based on. Because everyone who knows even the slightest bit of lore Five Nights at Freddy’s has, knows that this series is dark and very complex. And that’s an understatement…
For example, the movie only correlates with the game as Michael Afton murdering the kids and stuffing them into an animatronic, therefore possessing them, having the pizzeria in the first place and a few names. Other than that, that’s pretty much it.
That being said, I do feel as if they could have made this movie better by making it more about the game and book lore. I completely understand they want to make money so they have to gear it towards the general audience so more people would want to go see it, so they couldn’t go too in depth. But from a lore fanatic who’s fully completed many of the games: me, this film just seemed like any other movie with a few familiar faces and names.
However, they did incorporate some lore based scenes like (DON’T LOOK IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE YET) when the main antagonist says, “I always come back” which is a recurring statement said in the game franchise. Talking about soon-to-be Spring Trap, I still don’t get how the animatronics would just forget how the guy murdered them but suddenly “remember” when a random kid draws a picture and sticks it to a wall (YOU CAN UNCOVER YOUR EYES NOW).
Throughout the movie, being the FNAF fanatic I am, was trying to spot those clues to uncover more of the lore, like if Garrett translated to the crying child in the games. In both cases a kid has something bad happen to him by an adult with a car in proximity-in the car for the movie and the immediate left of a car in the game. Or that fact that there was only one spirit for Golden Freddy in the movie when the animatronics try to contact Abby, when many fans speculate there are two spirits that inhibit Golden Freddy in the game franchise. Sadly, I feel as if these possible “clues” are just Easter eggs and have nothing to do with the game franchise. That said, knowing that most of these movie watchers being Five Nights at Freddy’s fans, I believe it would have been better to include more lore based information to cater to most of this audience.
But the creators were tailored towards the general audience, not the investigating, obsessive fans like myself. Going into the movie I thought I would be seeing 50/50 of these perspectives, yet this wasn’t the case. Even though it wasn’t how I expected, this movie still exceeded my expectations in terms of how it was going to turn out.
It’s still impossible for me to grasp that these 8 years of “FNAF” have been leading up to many things; mainly this movie. That being said, I would 100% say that the movie was worth the wait. Sure, it could have been better in the aspect of diving in the game lore a little, but it still adds good content for this franchise that most like.
With the newest video game installment Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach and its DLC, Ruin, along with this new movie, I have a good feeling as to how this franchise is expanding.
