Five Nights at Freddy's, directed by Emma Tammi.Photo Credit: Universal Pictures/Universal Studios
Five Nights at Freddy’s
Directed by Emma Tammi
Written by Scott Cawthon, Emma Tammi and Seth Cuddeback
Starring Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail and Matthew Lillard
Classification 14A; 109 minutes
Opens in theatres Oct. 27
The Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was never going to be as terrifying as the video game series it’s based on, about murderous robo-mascots. There’s something about the active way we play games that make us more vulnerable. We lean in to the dank, animated corridors, eyes peeled for slight movements in the shadows, listening carefully for scurrying footsteps, which could be hard to hear because of that obnoxiously loud furnace. We’re so absorbed that the sudden appearance of a giant yellow chick wearing a bib that says, “Let’s eat” can be legitimately frightening. When we see that animatronic chick in the live-action movie, who fans recognize as Chica, she just looks adorable and goofy.
Director Emma Tammi and an army of co-writers, including the game’s creator Scott Cawthon, make a valiant attempt (and occasionally succeed) at wrangling jump scares and creepy vibes from the material. But their movie also gets twisted and tangled trying to cram as much lore as they can from the nine games (not to mention book series) released since the franchise debuted in 2014. When your concept is Chuck E. Cheese meets Chucky, say less.
Five Nights is at its best when it’s leaning into the jokes, which doesn’t happen enough. There’s a great recurring gag involving the game’s Balloon Boy, where the movie seems to acknowledge that any jump scares involving this character are more suited for a laugh. And then there’s Scream and Scooby-Doo alum Matthew Lillard, who shows up early on playing a career counsellor, oozing the kind of sinister humour this movie needs more of. However, his appearances are brief.
The movie stars Josh Hutcherson of The Hunger Games fame, giving a more dourly serious performance opposite a giant teddy bear and killer cupcake than the material demands. Hutcherson appears pale, with deep sunken eyes, playing Mike, the hapless night guard from the games; but here, he has a heavier Don’t Look Now-inspired back story.
Mike’s consumed by grief for his younger brother, who was kidnapped many years before. He tries to work through that trauma while being the parent to his younger sister, Abby (Piper Rubio doing fine work giving Danny Torrance vibes). There’s a whole child custody plot playing out in the background when Mike reluctantly lands a gig at the abandoned Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. That’s where he’s minding the security cameras, keeping an eye out to make sure the animatronic band, which include Freddy, Chica, Foxy and Donnie Darko-ish rabbit Bonnie, stay behind their curtain.
When the monsters do break out, the violence is mostly offscreen. Keeping things strictly PG for the younger audience means the pleasure of seeing bodies chewed apart by a killer bunny is off the table.
The bloodlessness didn’t seem to bother the extremely loud fan-filled screening I attended. The antics among that audience were frankly eye-opening. Bear in mind, Five Nights is what the kids who grew up with Minions turned to when they craved gibberish with more bite.
This is the demographic that fostered the #GentleMinions craze, a viral trend that had teens dressing up to see last year’s Minions sequel in theatres, recording themselves hooting and hollering at the screen. That behaviour was prevalent at Five Nights, from the cosplay to the vocal responses, as if fans were competing against Swifties to be the most obnoxiously loud in a cinema.
Feeding that fan base, for whom instant recognition warrants hallelujahs, was worked into the Five Nights at Freddy’s calculus. The movie feels like a themed birthday party. It’s not interested in a coherent narrative or a decent scare, so much as stuffing its fans’ loot bags with tried and true trinkets.