THE REVIEWS Episode 67: Five Nights At Freddy’s: The Franchise Part 3: The 2023 Movie
Did this game-based movie live up to its hype and expectations?
WARNING! This review contains spoilers of the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie!
Five Nights at Freddy’s needs no introduction.
A survival horror franchise that is well-loved by fans all over the world, this is one of those names you can never forget. Not only because it’s a pretty fantastic franchise that actually has stories and lore that got people hooked on them to research and find out, FNaF came out with a really good premise; surviving the night shift as a pizzeria’s security guard while fending off murderous, possessed animatronics.
It has also been consistent with its releases. Be it games, the novels, or even the toys, the franchise has something new released every single year, even up to now. That is why fans never got tired of FNaF. If a child is given new toys to play with every once in a while, they would feel really happy too.
The impact of FNaF is so big there are so many fan-made things made, ranging from games to videos. I’m sure you’ve heard some of them before. One Night at Flumpty’s, Five Nights at Candy’s, The Joy of Creation, Super FNAF, MatPat’s theory videos. The list goes on and on and on, but you know what I mean.
With such a huge influence it has on Earth, it’s no surprise there would be a movie based off the games. Sonic, Lara Croft, and Resident Evil all had movies too, and FNaF is no different.
This movie, though, has been in development hell for a good seven years. It was first announced in 2015 by Warner Bros when they acquired the film rights. Since then, the movie was teased various times by Scott, the directors kept changing, and even the production company changed from Warner Bros to Blumhouse, the company mastering horror movies. This went on until October 2022, when the production of the movie was finally moving forward. Okay, that’s enough of technical information. Let’s get to the movie.
Five Night’s at Freddy’s, directed by Emma Tammi, was released on 27 October 2023. It stars Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games, Journey 2) as the first game’s security guard Mike Schimdt, who works in an abandoned entertainment restaurant named Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria in order to prevent his aunt, played by Mary Stuart Masterson (Daniel Isn’t Real), from taking custody of his little sister Abby, played by Pieper Rubio.
Elizabeth Lail portrays Vanessa, a police officer. Not be confused with Vanessa the security guard from Security Breach, and I still don’t know why Scott and Emma created two completely different characters with the same name. Surprisingly, the legendary Shaggy voice actor Matthew Lillard plays William Afton, a.k.a Purple Guy and Springtrap, the main villain in this film. I’m sure we all know who this man is.
When the teaser trailer first dropped, I fucking shat my pants. I have never been more excited for this movie to be released. After all, I’m a FNaF fan. I was ecstatic it was finally getting released. The premise is pretty interesting, and the animatronics look REAL. I thought they wouldn’t look like how they did in the game, so I had low expectations for that, but holy shit, they looked really identical to their game counterparts. That’s a plus. Well, these animatronics are designed by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, also known for their work on The Muppets. A classical show, I might add.
With a decent cast, good animatronics designs, and the anticipation around it, I was hyped for the movie. When it came out in the cinemas, I rushed there to watch it, and I think it was a pretty great movie. Yeah, it might not be the best movie I’ve ever seen. It’s not as terrific and remarkable as Perfect Blue, The Founder, or John Wick 4, but it’s still a splendid film to see.
I’ve always wondered how Scott and the director were actually create a movie based on a horror survival game where there is absolutely no plot, and the only things to do are check the cameras and shut close the doors. Well, they created their own narrative so that the film could progress. It’s not an extraordinary plot, but it’s average.
One thing I was confused about when the movie was first released was its rating. It was given a PG-13 rating. In essence, teenagers can watch this horror movie without needing to show any identification. I’m really surprised by this, because Five Nights at Freddy’s is known for being graphically horrific. The animatronics killing security guards in a grisly way, blood splattered everywhere, and let’s not forget the unexpected jumpscares that would make anyone’s heart skip a beat. The fact that Scott and Tammi gave this a teen-rated rating is wild. I don’t blame them, though. It’s to cater to everyone who is a FNaF fan, young or old. I understand.
That doesn’t mean I’m a big fan of it. The movie really tries to be teenager-friendly, and I don’t really like that. FNaF is a horror franchise. I wanna see more blood, more gruesome murders by the animatronics, and a jumpscare. The jumpscares, something that made FNaF famous as it is today, was absent. Granted, I think the Balloon Boy appearance actually scared me a bit, but that’s not even the main attraction. It should be one of the four main animatronics, right? Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy? This is the biggest flaw of the movie, in my opinion. It could’ve had more potential as a NC-17 restricted horror film.
It might be a bit ironic but this horror movie didn’t scare me a lot. And I’m a pussy whenever it comes to horror movies. I hide under the blankets or close my eyes whenever I see Annabelle. Meanwhile, I just sat through FNaF without being a cowardly man.
Like I mentioned, Scott and Tammi spun their own story on this, since there wasn’t really any to begin with in the first game. I feel the introduction of Vanessa was a bit unnecessary, especially when they revealed her to be the daughter of William Afton. Lorewise, this shit is confusing. If you caught up with the lore in the games, you know Emily, or Circus Baby, is the actual daughter of Purple Guy. Vanessa is also the name of the crazy security guard in Security Breach, as I had written earlier. So, when I watched the movie and saw Vanessa the police officer, I was so bewildered I actually questioned myself if I had learnt the lore correctly or if I was actually missing something from the games.
Other than that, I didn’t expect Scott to place in parts of FNaF 3 into the movie. The springlocks in Spring Bonnie suit malfunctioning on William and eventually killing him actually happened in the movie. I thought this film was based on just the first game, but I’m not complaining though. I think it’s pretty cool to include lore from other games into the movie. It made me feel proud I know the origins of it.
I thought the part of Mike dreaming about how his brother was taken away and how he pleads the spirit of Freddy to help him is pretty original. It’s not boring, and it kept me engrossed. The animatronics liking Abby and wanting to keep her by their side was a bit weird, but I understood why. The spirits in the animatronics are all kids after all, and they all love to play with other kids too.
The whole part where the vandals breaking into the pizzeria was fucking satisfying as hell. They all got killed by the animatronics, but Abby’s babysitter Max received the most gruesome death. Max didn’t agree with the idea of wrecking Mike’s workplace to sabotage him, but her brother Greg and his friends did it anyways for money.
When Max comes in to try and find them, she got lured into a room, and her head was snapped off by the Freddy head. They even showed her headless body just plopping on the floor. Now, you know this is a PG-13 movie, right? Not a NC-17 movie, or restricted. Yet, they actually showed this shocking thing on the screens. Damn, that shit can be scarring, bro. It’s actually insane how the movie can’t really decide if it wants to be teen-friendly or straight up petrifying.
The music score is a fitting soundtrack to the movie. Ominous and creepy. Even the most renowned fan-made FNaF song by The Living Tombstone is played at the end credits, a homage to the FNaF fans. There are even cameos from CoryxKenshin and the theorist MatPat himself. Markiplier was also slated to appear as the previous security guard that got killed, but he dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with his own film Iron Lung.
Overall, this movie may be a bit plain and restricted on its horror elements, but in no way is it bad. I personally enjoyed the movie, and I’m sure many FNaF fans do too. Fuck the critics. They think they’re professional by calling this film shit just because they don’t have any base knowledge on the games, but they’re also the assholes and perverts that gave Cuties a 85/100. I wonder why, hmm?
Look at how far this franchise has come. It’s been a long journey, but it’s finally flourishing. It’s the best it could be now, and the best part is that it’s not stopping here. I’m excited to see what Scott comes up with the future of this franchise. I’m proud of this franchise, and I’m sure Scott and every other fan are too.
This is such a classic story of never giving up. In a time where Scott Cawthon faced hardship, where everything never seemed to be going well for him, and everyone was mocking him, he stood his ground, got back up from his failures, and made something so well-loved by fans worldwide.
His love for making games and his perseverance finally paid off.
And here is where I conclude my three-part Five Nights At Freddy’s review. I admit, I haven’t posted in a while, and I wanted to post more reviews. When I watched the FNaF movie, I knew I had to review it. Then I thought about reviewing the franchise itself due to the love I have for it, and that’s where I am today.
Originally, it was supposed to be a two-part review, with the movie review at the end of the second part, but I thought it was already way too long. Adding the movie review behind the games review was a bit too much of an overkill, so I decided to separate them. That’s why I posted Part 2 and 3 on the same day.
I hope y’all enjoy this three-part review, and I hope to have one more out before the end of the year. I’ll also update MY THOUGHTS ABOUT soon, because I do have a topic I wanna talk about.
With that, thank you all for reading, and have a nice day ahead!
