Five Nights At Freddy’s had a minor issue with its film adaptation right out of the gate. It’s a little awkward when a film gets released two years prior that already dips into your concept – specifically speaking about the Nicolas Cage-led Willy’s Wonderland. But this series of games that will conjure up fears of Chuck E Cheese like animatronics is popular enough that there’s room for both to exist. Video game adaptations are tricky because you must balance constructing an overall plot point while referring to experiences from the source material. Freddy’s does too much and too little at the same time. Emma Tammi’s film heavily relies on developing a sympathetic family structure with an abduction mystery and, in instances, realizes it needs to inject scares from Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, and co.
Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is just trying to get by the best way he can by raising his little sister Abby (Piper Rubio). He moves from odd job to odd job because of the childhood trauma of seeing his little brother get abducted from a campsite – to where his status is still unknown. However, Mike needs to lock down a job fast because his aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson) is itching to take full custody of Abby. As a last-ditch effort, Mike goes to a somewhat shady career counselor, Steve (Matthew Lillard), and gets offered the position of a lifetime (well, not really. The pay and hours aren’t great). It’s a nighttime security gig at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, once a happening spot in the 80s, but has since been abandoned because of a mysterious tragedy.
Sounds simple, right? Well, this is where the best parts of the game come in – at least initially. Freddy’s tries to invoke the suspense of watching the security cameras to keep these huge, scary robot characters from suddenly offing you. For all purposes, the Jim Henson Creature Shop creations look great and feel menacing. However, the story from Tammi, creator Scott Cawthon, and Seth Cuddeback doesn’t seem as concerned with placing them at the film’s center until its latter half. The film languishes in a melodrama inertia that consists of Mike battling to keep his sister and eventually diving into the origins of the robots tied to the original game. The revelations you finally learn are introduced too late to make an impact. Freddy and the ensemble have some sparseness in how they are integrated because things are withheld until the last minute.
Local police officer Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) is introduced merely as someone who has ties to the backstory of the pizza place and provides exposition in little drabs. She keeps information so close to the chest and eludes to it simultaneously that you see where things are going pretty quickly. I get it because creepy life-sized robots are the draw in a film like this, but you have to include other things – even if there are some clever moments where
Freddy’s utilizes its PG-13 rating early on. In saying that, everything comes down to the circumstances surrounding why this place got abandoned and having that tie into Mike’s overall story. The complications pile up, and the investment in building up so much backstory comes at the expense of the scares.
