Survive until 6am. Keep your power from draining, keep the robots out. Fail at any of this, and you get a jump scare. Easy. “Five Nights at Freddy’s” or “FNAF” was a game released August 8, 2014 created by one man named Scott Cawthon. The game, while simplistic in its atmosphere and horror, became hugely popular. However, it was YouTubers like Markiplier and The Game Theorists really boosted the game to where it is today. 

Ten main series games and 5 spin off games and about 28 books/novels and one movie just this year. The movie came out this year after being originally announced in April 2015. 

The movie went through several renditions since 2015. Originally being produced by Warner Brothers, but Cawthon, not liking the result backed out and eventually ended up producing the movie with Blumhouse Productions. The Warner Brothers did end up releasing the movie originally made to be the “FNAF” movie, renaming it to “Willy’s Wonderland” starring Nicolas Cage.

Here, as an original “FNAF” fan, I loved the movie. Here are some things to note. 

The summary:

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.

Attention to detail:

The easter eggs and things as small as the texture of the animatronics is insane. There are almost an absurd amount of little things like the name of a diner being hints to old fandom urban legends. The acting was phenomenal, Josh Hutcherson does an amazing job of playing the main character Mike Schmidt. 

Every shot was practical:

No CGI. It was truly a breath of fresh air and the sets were beautifully designed; from the pizzeria to Schmidt’s home. The pizzeria is both parts dingy and 80s-tastic, perfectly portraying the original game’s vibe. The YouTuber cameos were also brilliantly done, one in particular made the theater I was in gasp. This movie is PG 13, so there aren’t crazy gore scenes like many people had hoped, but, I believe, the amount of gore and violence is perfect for this kind of movie. One scene really caught me off guard and really was my only ‘scare.’ 

Cons:

There are many unresolved issues, like Mike getting evicted from his home, the people who were killed never being found and a character just dying in Mike’s home without any elaboration. While these events could help with both world building and set up for possible future movies, I wish they were further explained. 

This movie really is mainly for the fans; however, many people can enjoy it without knowing every little detail about it. It is really about your personal movie taste as is really any movie. My final verdict; 8/10. I would recommend this for fans and people who want to get into FNAF. Go in with an open mind. 

Source: Cinema express