“Five Nights at Freddy’s” is a video game series I have been aware of since its inception but never truly plunged into its fandom beyond the surface level. I have distinct memories of playing the first three games on middle school desktops, and I have seen every YouTube video from GameTheory on the franchise.
That said, FNAF has never been as close to my heart as it has been to many people I know.
I was intrigued when I heard the news about the game receiving a film adaptation. FNAF as a video game is predicated on building suspense and unease as the player tries to survive each of the five nights until all those building feelings inevitably climax with a violent animatronic jumping onto your screen. So I was hoping the mood of those games would translate well into, at the very least, a competent horror flick. What was received instead was a piece nearly devoid of all tension and a showcase of something plaguing most established franchised Hollywood productions.
FNAF seems ripe to express its horror in two ways: through rising tension or transformation/distortion of the body (as the franchise centers on children being displaced into animatronics). The film could play up the horror of that; however, the film merely treats that aspect as a footnote. The film could tackle the animatronics as slasher villains picking off victims one by one, playing up the fear; however, it is hard to fully explore that within a PG-13 rating (and to the film’s credit they try that for one scene). The film doesn’t focus on building tension as the early games did so well. Instead, it seems more interested in examining shared trauma through the animatronics, the security guard, and the police guard who sometimes checks up on the former.
Trauma and horror have always gone hand in hand, but it seems as though recent horror films have been honing in on that aspect, and this film is not an exception. However, this FNAF adaptation never dives into their trauma with any depth, always preferring to stay on the surface level. I was initially expecting little depth in the FNAF movie. Still, when a film starts to tackle fundamental themes like preconceived trauma and its effects on people, we expect it to tackle those themes with more depth than a kiddie pool with just an inch of water.
All aspects of this movie that I have issues with can be boiled down into two main topics. The first is that it coddles its audience like they are children. The creatives behind the film seem too interested in watering down any bite (no pun intended) the film could have because of the fear of how potential children and parents watching the movie could react. ‘We can’t show too much violence; what if parents get upset? We can’t build too much suspense. What if it scares the children watching it?’ Every aspect of this movie is the filmmakers trying to appease as many people as possible, which leaves the movie feeling unnecessarily tame and boring.
My second main issue is with the film and the larger industry: the obsession with surface-level iconography. The film is riddled with images and references that are supposed only to invoke a basic response of “Wow, I know that reference!” in the viewer. I don’t necessarily hate cameos and easter eggs. Still, there is a difference between an easter egg being visible in the background and a prominent YouTuber stopping the movie to say his catchphrase. Not to say there’s anything wrong with one having that reaction; when I initially saw the movie, I gave that same response. However, after sitting with it, I realized how cheap and unearned that reaction was. FNAF isn’t the only recent franchised film to be plagued with this specific issue; films like “Blue Beetle,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” and even the lauded “Across the Spiderverse” have moments where everything screeches to a halt so audiences can point for a piece of iconography they recognize. Each time it happens it gives me a feeling that the people in charge of these movies don’t truly trust their audience to engage with their material beyond the surface and the FNAF movie seems to be the worst offender of this.
Although I haven’t been singing this movie’s praises, I can’t say it’s utterly devoid of quality. It was competently shot. Josh Hutcherson acts well with what he was given. It was nice to see Matthew Lillard return to the genre that started his career and have fun with it. The puppeteer work used to bring the animatronics to life was incredible. I never once questioned how the animatronics moved. They all seemed real in the scope of the movie. The movie did have a single scene in which I felt genuine tension and suspense – a scene that involved a girl peering into the mouth of one of these terrifying animatronics. That scene had the level of tension I was expecting. I wish the rest of the movie had that as well.
