After an incident at his job as a mall security guard, Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is let go and desperate for work so that he can support and maintain custody of his younger sister, Abby (Piper Rubio).  He is offered a position at the closed-down and abandoned Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzaria to make sure no one breaks in and vandalizes the place that was once a hot family destination.  The position is almost always vacant, though, not only because of the horrible pay and even worse hours, but strange things seem to happen at the arcade and restaurant at night. 

Based on the popular video game of the same name, Emma Tammi directs Five Nights at Freddy’s for Blumhouse in conjunction with Universal Studios.  Scott Cawthon, the creator of the video game series, co-wrote the script with Tammie and also Seth Cuddeback.  At 109-minutes, the horror adjacent film focuses more on a tragic backstory that haunts Mike more so than the vengeful spirits that haunt the shut-down amusement complex, but between Claire Sanchez’s grungy set decoration and a bustling score by The Newton Brothers, there is plenty of unnerving energy in this adaption. 

Hutcherson leads the film in his fair major role after ending his run in The Hunger Games films and focusing his attention on indies and voice work.  Saddled, unfortunately, with a sobby backstory, the role gives the actor little room to really emote or have fun as Mike is a tired, overworked, underpaid, stressed-out young man.  He is playing the straight man in a world that never quite devolves into the insanity necessary to really make the story or the concept work, instead, he gets to retreat into a nightmare that unfolds and develops in increments each night allowing audiences to get a broader picture about the tragedy which has left him traumatized.  Returning to this sequence night after night, however, renders the overall pace of the film into something more episodic than singular where few of the details and mysteries meaningfully build on each other. 

For the frights that Five Nights does contain, it is still a passingly enjoyable experience.  The film has an odd approach to its horror identity as it does not rely too heavily on jump scares, a tactic which the environment truly lends itself towards.  Working within the confines of a PG-13 rating to more easily lure in the video game demographic away from their computer screens and seat them in front of the cinema screens, the film is not exceptionally violent, either.  What is most egregious about its approach is that the film underutilizes its sentient animatronic characters that, while striking and incredible to look at, have far too little screen time or consequence to the narrative.  Rather, it relies on an army of creepy children that continue to taunt Mike as he suffers from his sleeping pill and guilt-induced dreams.  It is ultimately revealed that the children in Mike’s dream are all missing children and their bodies have been hidden away in the animatronics and now their spirits haunt the Fazbear mascot troupe allowing the large creatures to come alive at night.  It is both gruesome and campy, but so poorly executed in a sloppy and rushed reveal that it takes any little bit of momentum away from the ending leaving audiences – at least those who are newcomers to the franchise – feeling deflated instead of thrilled. 

Five Nights at Freddy’s sits at a crossroads of genre; not scary enough to delight the horror heads but not punishing enough to instill any catharsis on the more psychologically minded in the audience either. It is not a comedy, but it is not bleak. There is a mystery, but it is underdeveloped and frankly, not treated with any weight despite its importance in the plot. While its tone stumbles, it does need still to be commended in a few areas, namely it does not feel like a blatant advertisement for the game, nor does it fall into the track of so many video game adaptations where everything feels preordained and that the characters have no agency over their decision making. The decision to make the mascots tangible suits instead of CGI also greatly increases the power of the few chase sequences as the characters are there in the dirty, grungy arcade together and the sheer size of Freddy and his friends are imposing in the frame. Ultimately, Five Nights at Freddy’s certainly has a base which it caters to, evidenced by an $80mill box office opening as well as setting a viewership record on Peacock where it debuted day and date, and while the lore is not alienating to newcomers, it offers little for them to latch on to and instead they are stuck watching a floundering cast drown while trying to make sense of a failed and directionless script.