Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably have at least heard of the Five Nights at Freddy’s Franchise. If you haven’t, imagine a Chuck E. Cheese type scenario.
(Major spoilers ahead)
The Five Nights At Freddy’s movie came out Oct. 27th in theaters and is streaming on Peacock. Five Nights at Freddy’s originally came out in 2014 as a small indie horror game, taking place in pizzeria that had games and animatronics for kids, like Chuck E. Cheese. The simple coding of the game gave the player only 11 screens, four characters and three buttons to interact with. The subtleness, mystery, and sounds made the game horrifying and fun for gamers of all ages. Scott Cawthon, the creator, then released three more games under the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” name, comic books, two new games called Sister Location and Security Breach, and a VR game. It’s safe to say that Five Nights at Freddy’s has a huge following, and a lot of lore.
As the game blew up, lots of youtubers had deep running connections in the game. Some of the most famous ones are MatPat (Game Theory), Markiplier, Jacksepticeye and The Living Tombstone. Giving fans a scare worse than any of the jump scares from any games: critics hated the new movie, giving it a 33% score on rotten tomatoes. To add to the fear, famous youtuber Jack Septic says:
All of this combined made going to the movie a complete surprise.
Before I talk about the actual movie, I must talk about the viewing experience. I actually flew home to California to see the movie with my best friend! We dressed up as Freddy and Bonnie and met up with some other friends. Her and I didn’t go crazy with the costumes, but many people did. I felt like I was seeing Barbie again, as everyone was dressed up, discussing theories, and the excitement and connection between everyone made the movie feel magical. It was nostalgic, modern and everything I could have ever imagined.
After seeing the movie, I can understand why critics rated it low. The movie was much easier to understand and more interesting if you knew the lore or had played the games. The movie was also rated PG-13, making it harder to include the original horror aspect. Although, to be fair, most Five Nights at Freddy’s fans were young when the game originally came out. I believe this to be true as there are many similarities between “Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza” and Chuck E. Cheese. At first glance the game may seem fine for children, but the story behind it is a little more mature, and I think it could have been explored better with an R rating. At least that’s what I think, but I was in fourth grade when the game came out, so I get the younger appeal.
I felt that the lack of horror was a good thing. This movie was more aligned with the first game, and especially the books. The first game used small things like sound effects to convey the horror. Although there weren’t that many jump scares, I thought the movie was plenty scary. Actress Elizabeth Lail and and actor Josh Hutcherson did an amazing job at conveying emotion, which to me was the scary part. Five Nights has always had a way of not giving all the information, leaving the viewer to fill in the blanks.
Now onto the spoilers.
For starters, we must address the YouTube celebrity appearances. MatPat has a small role in the movie as a server at a restaurant called Sparky’s. I loved this scene as it felt necessary for him to make an appearance in the movie. He even gets to say his signature line, “It’s just a theory” although I didn’t hear it the first time because the theater went into chaos the second he was on screen.
Next I’ll talk more about the lore. Originally, the story followed William Afton, the main villain, who has three kids: two sons and one daughter. Micheal Afton (also known as Mike Schmidt) is the oldest and a gruesome story follows him around his brother’s death, also known as the “bite of ‘83.” The youngest daughter has deeper story around her surrounding the game Sister Location, but that’s for a different day. William Afton’s Work Partner, Henry Emily, has one daughter.
In the movie however, William Afton has one daughter, Vanessa. Mike Schmidt has a younger brother who goes missing, and it’s later revealed he was kidnapped by Afton. Mike also has a younger sister named Abby. Obviously there is a big change in the lore from the games to movies. It is speculated that the children of the two main founders of the Franchise were switched. I understand the lore change being disappointing to some fans, but I think the writers gave themselves much more leeway with this new storyline. I am very excited to see how they continue it. I also loved Vanessa’s character in this movie. In the security breach and some of the books, Vannessa has a major role, and although the original timelines don’t match up, I think they made the right decision including her.
The only thing I didn’t like was the cupcake, but after hearing other fan’s theories, I’ve changed my mind. I originally thought the cupcake was kind of cringey, but then I was made aware of more lore. The Freddy animatronic is known to be still and hide, as that’s what the child associated with Freddy did. Foxy is running, as that’s what his associated child did, and Bonnie is most aggressive, as his associated child fought back. Chica, however, is associated with a young girl who lost her dog, which was taken by William Afton. So, it is said the dog is associated with the cupcake, which is why it is seen more as a pet. I don’t necessarily like this theory that much, but I do think it adds to the horror, because we see that the animatronics are really just kids–just people.
The last topic I want to touch on is the springlock scene. I fully thought that there wasn’t going to be a springlock scene; I remember being so scared of it when I was younger, and with the rating being PG-13 and the franchise’s tendency to leave things up to the viewers’ imagination, I was convinced there wouldn’t be one. Boy was I wrong! I think they did an amazing job with it. Mathew Lillard was so involved in this role and brilliantly conveyed the horror and emotion included in the scene. I also liked how the cupcake was shown biting the suit and giving the audience a closer look of how the spring lock failure would have played out.
In conclusion, I loved the movie. It was the perfect mix of scary, funny, emotional and nostalgic and I’m so happy I was able to see it with people who meant the most to me.