A troubled security guard begins working at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. While spending his first night on the job, he realizes the late shift at Freddy's won't be so easy to make it through.
Director: Emma Tammi
Cast: Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Mary Stuart Masterson, Matthew Lillard
Release Date: October 27, 2023
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Rated PG-13 for strong violent content, bloody images and language.
Runtime: 1h 50m
Five Nights at Freddy's is a rather bland, uninspired slog of a horror movie that's decidedly light on scares and mostly devoid of fun. Emma Tammi's film is surprisingly self serious with only small slivers of humor sprinkled throughout its overlong runtime. Its a strange choice for a video game adaptation about possessed animatronics from an 80's pizza place and it doesn't pay off since the story doesn't offer anything terribly engaging or fresh. The whole thing plays out in fairly predictable fashion which kills any sense of tension since every surprise is telegraphed from a mile away. Scares are decidedly sparse with only a handful of cheap jump scares sprinkled throughout. Josh Hutcherson, for his part, tries his best to bring some sort of energy and life to the whole thing. He does admirable work by giving his character far more depth and texture than the film deserves. Elizabeth Lail is saddled with a paper thin character, an overly invested local cop, it doesn't help that she doesn't share much believable chemistry with Hutcherson. Piper Rubio fares better with a likable turn as the little sister that manages to be cute but never annoying. Ultimately, Five Nights at Freddy's falls flat offering little outside of Easter Eggs for fans of the game but if you must get your film of haunted 80's pizza palaces you'd be better off watching recent films like The Banana Splits Movie or Willy's Wonderland.
D
