Five Nights at Freddy’s is an entry-level horror film for a young person, and if you can keep that in mind while you’re watching it, it’s a fun watch. It really is.
Happy Halloween, by the way. We’re trying to keep it spooky this season, so what else were we going to review other than the much maligned Five Nights at Freddy’s? And who better to talk horror with me than the queen of horror movies herself, Mrs. Know-It-All, after the fun we had with The Fall of the House of Usher.
It dropped on Peacock, so we gave it a watch. I’m going to be very upfront and frank: the trailers didn’t motivate me to go see it in a theater. But I did think there was something worth checking out.
It’s based on the video game of the same name, which I never played. Baby Know-It-All was very familiar with it but never played it either. This thing has been a long time coming. I remember hearing about it back when John Campea was on Collider.
Why I Question a Pile-On
I spent all last night and most of today reading the negative reviews from a lot of reviewers. When that starts to happen, I question it, hands down. I’m no hoity-toity critic. Don’t get me wrong, there are things to criticize, and we’ll absolutely talk about them. But I approach movies like you do, as entertainment first. Yes, I’m a filmmaker myself. I’ve worked in the film and television industry. The last thing I want to do is approach something like this as an auteur with my nose in the air, like I’m better than everybody else. I’m watching this literally the way you guys are.
So I asked Mrs. Know-It-All for the out-of-the-theater, fresh reaction. “Not bad. I was entertained. I giggled. Little jump scares. But I was entertained.”
An Onboarding Movie
If you’re a hardcore horror aficionado, don’t expect Exorcist type nonsense. It’s a PG-13 movie. The most we saw is when the security guard gets it, and you see a little bloody handprint on the window. I can think of literally three instances that I’d consider PG-13 gore, and if I can handle it, that’s pretty good.
Someone online said that everyone involved in making the movie was calling it a family film designed for kids and parents, and I realized what they meant by that. If you’re a mom or a dad and you love horror movies, but you don’t want to scare little Tammy or Timmy right out of the gate, legitimately sit them in front of this and see how they do. Let this be their onboarding, and now you’ve got the makings of a young horror movie fan.
We both tried watching it at that level, the way Baby Know-It-All would have at 12 or 13. It probably would’ve been more creepy to her than scary, and we still enjoyed it at our age.
I do believe Jason Blum is not stupid. I think he’s very smart, and I think that’s what he designed this to be. So they explain some stuff. They literally spell it out for you, which is a downside for those of us who are older. There are a lot of jump scares, and nothing advanced about them. They’re just jump scares. Entry-level horror movie. Don’t go into it with big expectations.
Freddy Fazbear’s, and Mike Schmidt
The basic premise is that a long time ago, in the 80s, there was this place called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. It’s essentially a glorified version, or a ripoff version, of Chuck E. Cheese. Kids went missing. They could never find or prove anything, but with all the bad press the place ultimately shut down.
Then you jump ahead to Mike Schmidt, played by Josh Hutcherson. When he was a child his little brother was kidnapped, and he saw it. He witnessed the abduction. Obviously that was hard on the parents. His mother passed away a bit after that, apparently dad’s out of the picture, and so he’s raising his baby sister all by himself.
He’s got this mean step aunt played by Mary Stuart Masterson, and she felt like a waste of somebody I recognized. At one point Mike takes his sister to work, and I kind of thought maybe the aunt would follow. I said, oh, she’s got to get it somehow.
From a storytelling standpoint there’s a better movie in here somewhere. But if you take it at face value, you’re going to have fun.
The Better Movie Inside It
There’s a scene where Mike and Vanessa are sitting on the edge of a canal type thing in a neighborhood, having this heart to heart about the trauma he went through. As an adult, that’s what draws you in, that parent side. I looked over at Mrs. Know-It-All and said, you know, in another universe, if they took out the trappings of Five Nights at Freddy’s, this would be a really interesting, Oscar-worthy dramatic role possibility for Josh.
He’s got good acting chops and he’s doing his best. I kind of felt like he was a little one note in this. Even at the end (spoilers), when everything is resolving, he’s still got that weird shadow over him. He’s got the five o’clock shadow, he’s disheveled. He’s not acting badly. I just wish he had more range.
Because of his trauma he gets fired from his mall cop job, and he goes to this career counselor played by Matthew Lillard, who we all know from Scooby-Doo as well as the Scream movies. Matthew Lillard’s obviously getting up there in age, but honestly, I liked him. He had more range than Josh Hutcherson had. I thought he was an interesting character, because he’s like, I do have this one job, I don’t know if you want to do it. Mike says no at first. Then he changes his mind.
His co-star is Elizabeth Lail, and to me she’s a new face. I haven’t seen her in many things. In the very beginning we couldn’t tell: was she acting badly, or were these choices she was making? Having seen the full thing, I believe they’re creative choices. I honestly believe she was doing her best to convey a survivor’s mentality. She feels guilty, because she kind of likes the kid, meaning Josh Hutcherson’s character, Mike. The sheer guilt of it.
And I liked the little girl who plays his sister, Piper Rubio. I haven’t seen her in anything, but I’d like to see her in more stuff.
Josh Hutcherson was in The Hunger Games. He played Peeta. It’s been a while. He was also in a time travel sci-fi series that did really well, and I never got to check it out. I probably should at some point, because I heard it went for two or three seasons. Mrs. Know-It-All says that until she met me, she always knew the faces of actors and actresses and never knew who they were. She’ll literally be in the middle of something going, I know him from somewhere.
Dream Theory
Mike goes to the place, and that’s where he meets Vanessa, the cop. Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza is on her beat. The police have to make sure everything’s fine, and they’re obviously aware somebody’s going to be there.
Mike’s taking sleeping pills, because he’s reading this book called Dream Theory. By all means, Google it, look it up yourself. It’s the concept that everything you’ve ever been exposed to is up there, and if you can entice your mind to get to that place through dreams, you may be able to remember finer details. Whether or not you believe in it doesn’t matter. That’s the suspension of disbelief they’re asking us for.
So he’s doing everything he can to go back to that time when his brother was kidnapped. He puts his headphones on, listens to nature sounds, and stares at a poster of Nebraska trees. So much so that he hangs it up at work, because that’s where he’s going to be at night now and he wants to be able to sleep there.
That’s when all the weird stuff starts happening. The animatronic nightmares start coming to life, and it’s kind of terrifying at first. Then he brings his sister, and there’s this weird tone shift. It stops being a suspenseful thriller type movie and gets more creepy. They’re building a fort. And apparently Vanessa knows about everything going on, because these animatronics are possessed by the spirits of the children that were killed at Freddy’s.
They Want Abby
The first time he falls asleep in this place, he has the same dream we’ve already seen him have, the same dream every night, this time with an addition. There’s a handful of children who aren’t normally there. That’s the first time you’re introduced to the concept that these are going to be the ghosts.
Come to find out, they know how to give him the thing he wants. Psychologically speaking, he wants to live in a place where his brother wasn’t abducted, and they kind of tease him with that. At one point he makes the mistake of saying, I’ll give you anything. And they’re like, okay. We want Abby. Abby’s his sister.
At first he’s willing to go with it. Then he realizes, oh no, this isn’t right, and that’s because Vanessa finally comes clean that they’re the spirits of the kids that were kidnapped.
A Protagonist Who Actually Gets It
I’m so used to protagonists having a level of ignorance in these situations, and they don’t do that here. As much as I’m joking about this being an entry-level horror movie, they actually write Mike Schmidt really well, in that he comes to the conclusions I feel like a normal person would. He looks at Vanessa and he’s like, so, ghosts of the kids haunting the animatronics, huh? Ghost children possessing giant robots.
My initial reaction was, how would he know that? And then I’m like, how wouldn’t he? It gets to the point where things are so ridiculous that why wouldn’t it be? The more I thought about it, the more it actually made sense. How many times have we watched a horror movie and said, in this scenario I’d totally get X, Y and Z from what’s going on?
The Lore, the Twist, and the Gore Complaint
I think there were probably a lot of Easter eggs. I didn’t play the game, but as far as I know it follows the game lore. Baby Know-It-All said there were something like five versions of it, that this movie followed the lore, and that’s what a lot of the fans loved about it.
There’s a twist, and I don’t want to spoil it. Normally I spoil everything. You’re going to have to watch this one yourself. Funny enough, I was so committed to thinking I’d predict how the movie was going to go that I got the twist wrong. I didn’t know who the end bad guy was. Mrs. Know-It-All did. She goes, I bet it’s so and so, and all of a sudden it turned out to be. Look at you. Way to go.
A couple of reviews said it was a little too gory for a PG-13, which I think is silly. It’s the handprint, a little bit left on the windowsill from inside the thing, and later on you do see the body of a guy and his face is all kind of mangled. Oh, I forgot one. So there’s four. But it’s not bad at all. There were a couple of scenes that got me a little more scared, with my horror movie issues, but I was very entertained. If Baby Know-It-All were still little, I’d take her to see it.
The Verdict
Five Nights at Freddy’s lands at a 7.5 out of 10 from me and an 8 out of 10 from Mrs. Know-It-All on the Know-It-All Index.
If I approach it as a film person, the movie is a five or a six. But I’m not going to approach it like a film person. I’m approaching it as someone who realizes what this was, who understood what they were trying to do, and frankly, I was entertained. To me that’s the ultimate. I think it’s a well-deserved seven and a half. I had a good time. Funny enough, I’ll probably watch it again before Halloween’s out, because Baby Know-It-All is going to want to watch it.
Mrs. Know-It-All went to an eight, and she scored it as a mom. “This would be one of those things I would take her to. I would spend the money on the tickets and the popcorn. And I had a good time.”
If you’re near a theater that has it and you’ve got some time to spare, go watch it. It’s not a super long movie, and it didn’t feel like it took that long. Or if you happen to have a Peacock subscription, watch it there. Either way, we had a really fun time with it.
We should have made popcorn.
Tell me what you thought of the movie. The critics all clearly have an opinion on this one and so do the audiences, so which side are you on? The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
