After years of slogging through production limbo, the film based on the popular video game franchise finally jump scared the box office in its opening weekend to the tune of $80 million in domestic earnings. “Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF)” has broken out onto the big screen after being in production since April of 2015. As the years went by, multiple scripts were written and directors were selected and deselected, all with anticipation and doubts about whether this film would ever be released. As the development slowly trudged on, more and more games and books were released, expanding the franchise and the depth of the story being told. One of the recently added characters even appeared in the film, Vanessa, played by Elizabeth Lail.
So, after so many years of anticipation, how did the movie stack up? Well, audiences and critics have vastly different opinions on the movie. Rotten Tomatoes slammed the film with a 30% critic score, while the audience score was a much more respectable 88%. This discrepancy can be seen in another recent video game to big screen adaption, “The Mario Movie,” and is likely for similar reasons. That is, in both cases, the movies were created to be love letters to their respective fans with plenty of easter eggs and homages to their source material, but both fell short in the plot department.
Not to say the plot was bad per se, maybe a bit confusing at times, but the overall consensus I’ve seen regarding this film is that it is sorely lacking in scares. I too, after viewing the movie, thought they should have upped the scares in the so-called horror movie. But the issue lies in the fact that, ultimately, the film is rated PG-13, and for a good reason. There’s no doubt the film will be capitalizing on the merchandising opportunities targeted at the younger audience members. With a younger audience in mind, its rating and lack of scares suddenly make sense. It’s just a shame because the franchise has such a horrifying premise with its backstory of child murders and vengeful spirits that can never reach its full potential with the PG-13 film rating. That being said, it did have one solid scary scene where some unimportant recently introduced characters, one by one, were killed off by the animatronics, all culminating with a woman getting bitten in half. The other highlight was the reveal of the main villain behind the scenes, William Afton, who, between his ominous voice, crooked walk, eerie white eyes and tattered costume, made for a grand reveal. While the animatronics were only somewhat scary in the film, there is no denying that the Jim Henson Company put a lot of love and care into bringing game accurate animatronics to life.
No doubt this film was made passionately, but perhaps it was spread too thin on which audience it was trying to please. All this being said, the “FNAF” movie that has so far grossed $217 million dollars worldwide will likely soon see a sequel in the not-too-distant future, proving Freddy is here to stay.
