Five Nights at Freddy's

Mr. Pat

13 hours ago

4 min read

Sometimes I really miss living in Florida, especially when it's super cold. But you know what made me miss Ohio the most? This time of year. I loved the weather down there, but nothing beats a northern state in the fall. With the hoodie weather, the leaves changing color and the sunsets. For some reason, there is no prettier sky than the month of October. It was still Halloween, and it was still awesome with all the stuff we got to do, but you can't beat October up here. So yeah, time to talk about...

Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)

I've never played this game before, but I watched my brother and sister play it on their phones once. I wasn't watching their screen; I was watching them, waiting for the jump scares, and they came fast and furious. I've seen enough YouTube videos that Lincoln watched, so I'm pretty familiar with the lore. After two years of him asking me to review the movie, I figured, what better time than the present?

Josh Hutcherson in Five Night's at Freddy's

Josh Hutcherson, Mike Schmidt, is a security guy who is not very good at his job, or any job, really. He's been fired so many times that his career counselor is almost out of options. His last shot at getting a job is to work as an overnight security guard at a long-closed pizza restaurant, complete with singing animatronics. Unfortunately for Mike, those robots have murder on their minds.

There are a decent amount of subplots in there, like Mike's family life. Mike and his sister lost their parents, so Mike has custody of her; there's a greedy aunt trying to get custody and Mike has some big money problems. The plots are not much worth discussing because they all exist as a reason for Mike to keep going back to his job, instead of saying, "Screw this noise" and staying home at night. There's another subplot with Mike trying to remember everything about the moment his brother was kidnapped, but we're here for evil robots.

From what I've gathered, in the game, you're a security guard who hangs out in the security room. You're supposed to check the monitors to keep an eye on the animatronics as they move around before they start closing in on you. You either last until 6:00 AM or they break in and eat you. With a straightforward premise, the movie changes up the formula quite a bit. There's a surprisingly small amount of stalking; in fact, Mike does most of it. The robots seem to have their own things going on and, if left to their own devices, would probably just chill and sing "Talking in Your Sleep" by The Romantics.

I wonder if those behind the scenes were worried people wouldn't be interested in a 90-minute movie that was like the games, because there's a lot of lore crammed into that runtime. I understand it would be difficult to make this movie if it were faithful to the source material, but for me, I don't think they needed to jazz it up all that much. For a movie about haunted animatronics, there is a lot going on that's not really necessary. Wally's Wonderland was fantastic, and it didn't bother to give you a backstory of the main character. But the filmmakers want a trilogy, and you can't do that if everything's wrapped up nicely.

I have some small nits, but there's nothing wrong with it. It's entertaining enough, and Hutcherson is good as Mike. It's weird, though, even though he's got a beard now and is old enough to be his sister's guardian, he looks the exact same as when he was in The Hunger Games. No matter what they do, and how they dress him up, he still looks like a teenager wearing his dad's clothes. Even so, he's still good in this, and I enjoyed his somewhat manic take on the role.

Some random musings before we wrap up. I really liked the evil aunt's lawyer. He's so checked out of this whole thing; it's so funny watching him react to what's going on around him. From the first time you see him, you can tell he'd rather be anywhere in the world other than there, but he's being paid, so he puts up with it. Then there's a scene in the diner where the aunt is talking with some local street toughs, and he keeps trying to leave when they start talking about killing Mike or vandalizing his place of business. He tries to get up multiple times, but she won't let him, so he glumly sits back down. He even gives an "I'm out" when they suggest killing him. It's funnier than how I typed it, trust me!

Also, it's always nice seeing Matthew Lillard. He plays the career counselor, and anytime he's on screen is a joy. They're 100% going to make more of these, and Lillard says he's been signed on to a 3-picture deal, so good for him. I'll see all of them, and here's hoping that, with the lore already established, they don't need to take so many storytelling detours when people just want to see some malelovent robots!