A troubled security guard begins working at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. During his five nights on the job, he realizes that something is wrong with the pizzeria and pretty soon finds the truth about its animatronics.
Sometimes, fan service isn’t enough to save a movie, and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is a perfect example. The plot follows Mike Schmidt, a down-on-his-luck security guard who lands a night shift at the abandoned Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza—a place haunted by the ghosts of children and murder most foul. There’s a mystery involving Mike’s missing little brother that’s supposed to tie the emotional core of the film together, but the result is just a muddled slog of exposition and drawn-out, lifeless scenes. Rather than letting the story breathe with suspense or action, most of the runtime is spent explaining rather than showing. Every conversation feels like a chore, and the human characters don’t help. Mike (played by Josh Hutcherson) is a walking blank—there’s no real sense of urgency, connection, or even believability. Everyone else is just as flat, weighed down by dialogue that’s either forced or outright cringeworthy.
Let’s get to the real issue: this movie isn’t scary. Maybe it’s the PG-13 rating, or perhaps the director just forgot this is supposed to be a horror film, but almost everything that makes the FIVE NIGHTS games genuinely unnerving is stripped away. The atmosphere is too clean, the violence too sanitized, and aside from a handful of half-decent jump scares, there’s nothing here to unsettle you. What made the games so cult-worthy—the constant tension, the feeling of helplessness in the dark—gets lost in translation, replaced with clunky backstory and melodrama.
The one thing the movie gets right? The animatronics. Brought to life with practical effects by the Jim Henson Creature Shop, Freddy and his robotic friends actually look fantastic—uncanny, massive, and oddly lifelike, like they might lurch into the audience at any second. If only the rest of the movie could live up to them.
In the end, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” feels like a half-hearted love letter to the fanbase, something designed for nostalgia rather than quality. If you grew up with the games, you might enjoy seeing the pizzeria brought to life. For everyone else, this adaptation squanders its own premise. There was potential here for a clever, creepy horror flick, but this isn’t it. It’s just a low-effort cash-in, and a pretty boring one at that.
Now available on a 4K Ultimate Collector’s SteelBook Edition
11k
19.8k
1.5k
1.8k