As the lights dim, an excited hush falls across the theater. All eyes drift up from the buckets of popcorn to the big screen. The movie begins and anticipation fills the room; fans have waited years to see the nostalgic childhood horror game, Five Nights at Freddy’s, reimagined as a movie.
The franchise was originally popularized in 2014, and over the years, the series garnered a massive online fan base as the theories, gameplay, and lore surrounding Five Nights at Freddy’s evolved.
The massive size of the FNAF fandom raised the stakes of this movie’s release, adding pressure to director Emma Tammi to do the video games justice in her adaptation. She worked alongside creator Scott Cawthon, collaborating to produce a film that aimed to uphold fans’ standards.
In an interview with The Wrap, Tammi said, “Scott has an encyclopedic knowledge of the lore and of course all the storylines that make up the games and the books, but also a really encyclopedic knowledge of the fan base. And he really keeps his pulse on the conversations that are happening around everything that comes out Five Nights at Freddy’s related.
“That expertise felt like something we really needed to be aware of and listen to as we were moving forward with a feature adaptation of the game,” continued Tammi.
A movie version of the much-loved games had been in the works for a long time; initially, the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was going to be made under Warner Bros Pictures, and fans looked forward to seeing their four favorite villains come to life on-screen at the height of their popularity.
However, the project was delayed and eventually forgotten about by enjoyers of the FNAF franchise, until it was finally reassigned to Blumhouse Productions as of late and sparked a love for the nostalgic series once again. With this project being a long time coming, it was important for the director to get it right.
The movie follows troubled security guard Mike on his new gig at an abandoned family restaurant. There, he and his little sister Abby meet the same four animatronics featured in the game. With the help of Officer Vanessa, Mike and Abby discover the secrets hidden in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, and they try to escape.
The star-studded cast is characterized by the beloved Josh Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard, and rising star Elizabeth Lail, enticing viewers to tune in. What has fans most riled up is that the film even features cameo scenes for YouTubers like MatPat, who are well-known in pioneering the hype for the Five Nights at Freddy’s games when it all started.
The movie’s high expectations, in a way, set it up for disappointment. Since its release in October, the movie has been criticized for its many differences from the games and for ‘not being scary enough’.
While it did not feature many graphic scenes or jump scares true to the original games, the PG-13 parameters on the rating kept the film appropriate for a wider range of ages to enjoy and preserved the childlike vibe of the movie.
The score on Rotten Tomatoes is 30%, but the audiences’ tally is much higher, showing that it was well-received from a standpoint of fan service, but not celebrated as much of a cinematic masterpiece.
Although the movie was not what audiences were expecting, it represents the significant culture of early YouTube in an untapped sphere and pays as an honorable homage to the fans, the franchise, and the story of Five Nights at Freddy’s.