Five Nights at Freddy's Movie Review (Spoiler Free)

It's spooky season and that means it's time for spooky movies. At the top of my list: Five Nights at Freddy's. (Clearly the list of someone who doesn't watch horror movies.) Let's be real here, we've been waiting for this for a while. For anyone who doesn't know, Five Nights at Freddy's is a game franchise that originally release in August of 2014 and has since amassed a cult following. The basics of the game is simple: watch the cameras and scare off the murder mascots trying to hunt you down. Simple enough for everyone to try but challenging enough to be interesting. And that's it, right? Well, not quite. Each game, because there've been more than a few, leaves behind hints that build towards a bigger lore. Who're you playing as? Why are the animatronics trying to kill you? What do these minigames mean? Who's the man talking to you? A lot of these questions, we didn't and still don't have definite answers for. The movie was supposed to be the answer to a lot of these. Was it? No. Did I enjoy it like I was fourteen again, watching MatPat have a full breakdown on his theory videos? Absolutely. And here's why.

Image Credit: Universal Pictures

Let's start with the bad. The movie didn't feel as deep as I wanted it to. The plot was there but missing some of the deeper elements of the games. Anyone who's played them or even watched a YouTuber play them knows that Scott Cawthon, the creator of the franchise, likes to leave his audience with hints of the whole story; he likes to leave us with bits and pieces of a bigger puzzle for us to put together. The movie was missing that. I wanted more. I went in prepared with hours of condensed knowledge after studying YouTube theories and blogs only to sit and a semi-lore-accurate plot. There were even points that disregarded lore entirely just for the shock factor.

The story also lulled at a point for me. If you've seen the movie, you know what point I'm talking about. Around the mid-point, the movie switched from a more somber, eerie story to something lighter and almost cute. It did switch back, but it was a jarring moment that knocked me out of everything that was going on.

Now, none of this is to say I didn't enjoy the movie. All-in-all, I would give it a 6/10. So there has to be something good, right? Yeah, there is.

I enjoyed a good portion of the plot and the storytelling -- it wasn't so fast-paced that I couldn't keep up and it was so slow that I was bored. The acting was also phenomenal. Josh Hutcherson did a phenomenal job in his role and really knew how to walk the line of desperate and exhausted. I wouldn't have picked anyone else for the role.

To name a few other things, I actually enjoyed the practicality of the animatronics, the amount of gore used, the fitting jump scares, and the tone of the movie as a whole. I could go on and on about the little things, but there was one more thing that really stood out and that was the scenes we've been waiting for. The movie may not have been lore accurate, but it was satisfying in it's own way. We've been waiting for this movie for too long and it's clear that Scott knew that. He may not have given me the lore dump I wanted, but he definitely gave me the satisfaction of bringing to life some pretty big moments.

All-in-all, there is a reason that this movie is currently sitting at a 29% on rotten tomatoes and an audience review of 88%. This movie was for the fans, not the critics. Was it perfect? No. Was it everything I've been waiting for? Also no. Did I enjoy it? Absolutely. And so did the rest of my theatre if the applause was anything to go by. While I do hope we get something more lore accurate in the future, I'm fine with settling with what we were given.