Film review: ‘FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
As a movie title, Five Nights at Freddy’s sounds more like a comedy-drama based in a nightclub rather than a horror film. Gamers, however, will know better as this is an adaptation of a massively popular supernatural/ slasher themed videogame. The film’s trailer suggested a Saw-style human rat trap torture porn film. There is a touch of that but possibly as a concession to a younger videogame audience, this is far less violent than that grotesque franchise. Instead, Freddy’s veers toward The Black Phone in its depiction of a character plagued by psychological trauma who tries to call on help from beyond the grave to deal with a deadly threat and to try and solve a series of child abductions. For about the first half, this makes for a more intriguing film than we might have expected but the limitations of the source material begin to show and it runs out of ideas.
Josh Hutcherson plays borderline deadbeat Michael Schmidt, a wayward young guy who, despite the responsibility of being his 12-year-old sister Abby’s (Piper Rubio) guardian, has made a habit of getting himself fired from security officer jobs. After beating up a shopping centre patron and remarkably not going to prison, he takes the only job available, a night guard at an abandoned pizza restaurant/theme park called Freddy Fazbear’s. Back in the 80’s, Freddy’s strangely tried to attract customers by having huge creepy looking animatronic puppets as entertainment so, not surprisingly, it’s now derelict. As Michael discovers in the middle of the night, there’s more to Freddy’s and the evil looking puppet creatures than he could have suspected and they may have some connection to the defining moment of his life at 12 years of age when his brother was abducted.
Writer/Director Emma Tammi, along with co-writers Seth Cuddeback and Scott Cawthon (who created the original video game) do a reasonable job of building this strange world and the characters’ back story. The film seems to be taking an interesting turn into psychological drama as Michael thinks he can piece together the story of what happened to his brother from clues in his dreams. Eventually, though, the film diverts into monster movie/slasher territory and loses most of its earlier intrigue. Also, unfortunately, as horror, it’s not especially tense or scary and long before the end, any sense of menace has dissipated. The film also contains some gaping story holes; at one point a group of characters – including someone close to Michael and Abby – are killed but no one seems to notice.
Josh Hutcherson does a decent job with the available material and is convincing enough as a troubled guy trying to piece his life together. Unfortunately, there’s little scope for Hutcherson to create anything like an indelible horror movie character. Elizabeth Lail, who recalls both Emily Blunt and Jennifer Lawrence, has some screen presence as the local cop who mysteriously seems to have a lot of time to spend at Freddy’s with Michael. Piper Rubio has a reasonably effective mix of innocence and creepiness as youngster Abby. Mary Stuart Masterson, as the nefarious Aunt Jane who wants custody of Abby, is probably as menacing as any of the puppet monsters. Scream alumnus Matthew Lillard also appears in a typically quirky role.
As so often happens in films these days, Freddy’s hints at a sequel but whether this undercooked film will generate enough goodwill among horror and video game fans to justify that, is uncertain.
Nick’s rating: **1/2
Genre: Drama/ Horror.
Classification: M.
Director(s): Emma Tammi.
Release date: 26th Oct 2023.
Running time: 109 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.