Five Nights at Freddy’s, a successful video game, is not a hit movie. The film’s 110 minutes are boring and include far too many dream sequences, exposition, and first-act setup for something so ridiculous.
Like Five Nights at Freddy’s writer-director Emma Tammi and developer Scott Cawthon, we’re unsure how serious to take it. They write together. This strange, terribly dull tone betrays a formulaic and uninspired story, oscillating between sad conversations about childhood trauma and silly kids acting like idiots in a movie. In a film about feral animals, one manufactured animal checking their watch seems unnecessary.
A rundown Chuck E. Cheese-like kids’ pizza parlor provides oily slices to an electronic band in Five Nights at Freddy’s. Someone must keep everyone out after years of closure. Mike (Josh Hutcherson), a security guard, works with unnerving career advisor Steve (Matthew Lillard).
Beethoven raises his little sister when his parents die, despite his evil aunt Mary Stuart Masterson’s attempts to have him thrown in the pound.
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The disappearance of his brother when he was a child has trapped Mike here. He replays his absence in his nightmares to figure out what occurred. Workplace sleeping is not advised.
Even seasoned viewers liked gory B-movies. The idea’s retroness and 1980s setting recall Death Spa, dolls, and Chopping Mall’s absurdities. A revised interpretation swiftly loses value due to modern genre concerns, which focus on our one-note protagonist’s lifeless emotional agony rather than the horrifying delight of seeing artificial animals come to life.
Tammi struggles to establish tension, even at high intensities, yet the PG-13 rating balances and edits death sequences. Her films seldom make you sweat, but a monotonous ball pit scene is memorable. She never accelerates her tiny baddies.
It looks better than Amazon’s 1980s Halloween film Totally Killer, which is dreadful. This benefit doesn’t make up for the script’s many shortcomings, including a confusing plot that never makes sense.
She directs the film well otherwise. Too often, Elizabeth Lail police You tell Hutcherson’s negative, plain hero. Their conversations are like text-on-screen fluff you wish you could read faster.
The film is too long on discussions and too short on deaths, underestimating the weak mystery. Untimely scene-stealing and silly exuberance ruin the dramatic reveal. Visual conflict will dominate.
Hesitation and pride cause a substance to never deliver late-night pleasure. Problem: You’ll forget Five Nights at Freddy’s by morning.
UK theaters are showing Five Nights at Freddy’s. It will land in Peacock, USA, on Oct. 27.
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