Five Nights at Freddy's

"Five Nights at Freddy's" is a film that seems to stay faithful to the games, especially in its portrayal of the creepy animatronic characters that capture the eerie spirit of the game's characters. Despite the film not being as bad as some critics suggest, it falls short of being truly impressive. It can be described as a generic, light production that manages to entertain until the end.

On the downside, the film is quite moderate in terms of violence and scares. The scares it does offer are mostly predictable and lack the ability to truly terrify, relying on dated techniques. Furthermore, the lack of violence makes it feel somewhat juvenile. The characters in the film come across as somewhat caricatured and unrealistic, particularly the human villains who seem like they're straight out of a 90s teen comedy. The direction also falls short, leaving "Five Nights at Freddy's" lacking a distinct identity and failing to cater to both the child and adult audience.

I found the concept to be a bit cartoonish, so I was expecting it to be more fun. The story had a slow start, and the main character's easily startled, and his constant jumpiness gets old pretty quick. Surprisingly, there weren't many jump scares, and it felt like a slasher movie without the slashing. They shied away from showing the gruesome stuff, opting for screams, shadows, and implied horrors. It's a little bit slow paced, thought it was a slow burn buildup but it doesn't get to the highs. It feels like it drags slightly.

While the premise was interesting, it seemed like they focused solely on the plot, neglecting the fun and scariness. The concept was fresh, but it lacked imagination in the end. The whole "kidnapped little brother" storyline felt like an excuse for allowing his sister to interact with the robots, even though it was illogical given how much he cared for her. Hard to believe he wanted to find his brother so much he's willing to 'sacrifice' his sister. This inconsistency was hard to overlook.

The film wasn't particularly thrilling, but I I did like how the aunt got got, even though it wasn't shown explicitly. The introduction of the yellow rabbit was genuinely scary, how he walked out, but once he started talking he wasn't so frightening anymore..

Anyway, it's a little generic, not as fun nor creepy as it could've been; not too much to get you interested in the characters even though they did have some depth. Ultimately, a pretty mediocre and forgettable film.

So, I know it must be extremely difficult to take a simple gaming concept like Five Nights at Freddy's and stretch that idea out into a full blown movie. I totally understand that artistic hardship, but...The script missed the mark folks.

I honestly enjoyed the stunning look of everything, which I gather most people assume would be top notch given the studio that made the film, but wow... the basic story was so very weak. I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to horror movies, but this was moving into borderline "cheese", parody territory.

The positives: I was living for the look of the creature costumes. So many kudos there. The acting is pretty decent for a studio movie, as it really should be. Matthew Lillard was the standout performance in my opinion. The music was pretty cool too.

Everything considered, I honestly enjoyed myself, which is the point of any entertainment product after all. So I give it a six. But that side-story, and most of the dialogue really needed to bake in the oven a little longer before being served up.

Five Night at Freddy's was a pretty big letdown. I went in with the expectation to have a pretty scary fun time. Instead what I got was a boring cliche riddled film. Right from the start you can tell this film was geared toward the younger audience. We really don't get much scenes with Freddy and his friends even though they are supposed to be the main attraction here. There is to much setup to the story which is not interesting at all and not enough kills/thrills. Maybe under a different Director or writer this could have turned out to be a more enjoyable experience. Five Night at Freddy's gets a 4 low stars out of 10 from me.

A security guard gets a job, and suddenly realises he's going to have an incredibly challenging and difficult night.

I genuinely and desperately wanted to love this film, the trailers looked so cool, and despite not being a gamer, I knew of the game.

Now, if I were judging this solely on the visuals, I'd be giving it a mammoth score, and healing praise onto it, it does look fantastic, and as for the 'locals,' they look so cool, the special effects are great, genuinely a smashing looking film, one that my fifteen year old self would have loved.

Now, the important bit, the translation from game to film, I really wish I could say it worked brilliantly, I'm not sure, I think there's something missing, does the story work? Sadly I'd have to argue that I don't think it does.

I think younger teens will genuinely enjoy this movie, for horror lovers like myself, it may be lacking a bit of bite, similar to M3GAN, very watchable, just a little tame.

6/10.