Videogame movie fans have been eating well this year, with thesuper-successfulMario moviein April and now a film adaptation ofFive Nights At Freddy’s. This picture show has been in development hell for years, but after an eternity of false leaks, changing hands, and on-set snippets, it’s finally been released—and it’s great.
While I’ve not played every one of the countless entries in the series (I may be an adult, but I am still far too scared of FNAF 4 to go near it with a 30-foot pole), I’ve been a huge fan of the franchise since 2016. I’ve had fun times with both the games and books, and I’ve been there theorizing about the lore with everyone else.I had high hopesfor this movie, and it paid off. It’s like the filmmakers asked me what I wanted in a FNAF film and added in every Easter egg I could’ve brought up. What I wanted to see most of all, however, was a heartfelt, original story that stood on its own—something that the piece heartily delivered.
Before we get a move on, here’s ahuge spoiler warning for the rest of this article. You have been warned.
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And that theme park ride is pretty sus.
Everything FNAF Fans Could Want
As much as I’d like to think that I can’t be suckered in by callbacks or references to iconography, I was grinning like a maniac and holding back my urge to clap like a seal for all the nifty winks and nods. Two of the biggest that were among those that I had gone in hoping for (final warning for spoilers) are the Matpat cameo and the use of The Living Tombstone’s FNAF 1 song in the credits, pie-in-the-sky hopes for me and many others in the fandom that had me bobbing up-and-down in my seat with glee. There were also references I never expected, like an animatronic version of a doll from the books and a disassembled Sparky the Dog, a fake animatronic from a FNAF 1 screenshot hoax.
The editing, lighting, cinetography, effects, and story are all superb—allowing the fan service to feel like fun nods rather than crutches.
Speaking of animatronics, this is all without mentioning how 1:1 accurate (and gorgeously realized) the band members themselves are. They’re all practically puppeteered; hell, I thought they were full robots with how incredibly done their movements were. The glowing eyes were never distracting and were often the subject of some damn good bits of cinematography, which is a great plus.
On the topic of filmmaking, let’s get to the quality of the movie. Fan service is great but the best way to make fans happy is to make a good piece of art, which this film definitely is. I was worried going in that thefilm wouldn’t be scarybut, while not nightmarish, it had some nice moments. The sequence following Mike’s second dream was distressing, the first Cupcake attack was real visceral, and the set-up to how volatile the springlocks are made the scene with Abigail getting stuffed put me on the edge of my seat. I was also happy to see Afton’s springlock failure happen onscreen (even if I would’ve preferred some more gore) and loved the final shot of him bleeding out in the dark.
Best Of The Best
My favorite aspect by far, though, was the main story. It focuses on the strained relationship between Mike Schmidt and his sister Abigail, who are alone after their parents' death. Mike is trying to care for his child sister while struggling with guilt over the death of his brother, something he blames himself for. He’s constantly trying to recreate the event in his dreams, trying to remember every tiny detail of his brother’s kidnapping in an attempt to figure out the murderer’s identity. This trauma causes him to lose his job as a security guard after he beats up a kid’s dad under the assumption that they’re a kidnapper and creates distance between himself and his sister.
After some nights at Freddy’s, and after hanging out with the animatronics once they befriend his sister, their ghosts appear in his dream and make him the bargain of giving him an endless fake memory of his brother living in exhange for Abigail. He initially accepts but soon realizes that his living sister means more to him and that he needs to stop trying to change the past. It’s a real heart-wrenching plot that takes advantage of not only FNAF’s ghost story elements, but the idea of ‘dream theory’ (a fan theory that asserts the events if FNAF 1–4 took place in a child’s dream) which is referenced via a book Mike bases his dream-recollection plan on. It’s not only emotional, it’s a clever use of the story’s elements (which is a general rule for this film; pretty much every Chekhov’s Gun gets fired).
The FNAF movie is a great time that I’m sure even newcomers will enjoy. The editing, lighting, cinetography, effects, and story are all superb—allowing the fan service to feel like fun nods rather than crutches. If there’s a sequel (fingers crossed), I’ll be sure to always come back.
NEXT:FNAF: Security Breach’s DLC Foreshadowed Its Ending In The Best Way
