What’s up gamers! The “Five Nights at Freddy’s” (FNAF) movie, based on the iconic animatronic horror series, was finally released on Oct. 27, 2023, after its much-anticipated premiere. FNAF fans have been waiting for years for its release, eager to see their favorite content creators make special appearances and what the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise creator, Scott Cawthon, was able to accomplish through the movie’s premiere. Cawthon made the most out of the hour and 50-minute long film, implementing references to the games, the book series and fan-made creations based on the FNAF franchise while also adding new layers to FNAF’s infamous lore.
The cast list features Josh Hutcherson as Mike Schmidt, the security guard, and Matthew Lillard as William Afton. Elizabeth Lail portrays Vanessa Shelly. Notably, the film also features some exciting cameos, with Cory Kenshin and MatPat joining the ensemble to delight fans of the franchise. Their inclusion serves as fanfare for audiences and adds an extra layer of intrigue, making the movie a must-watch for both FNAF fans and movie-goers alike.
The plot was thoughtfully paced and offered essential spaces for tension relief, while also propelling the story forward. Elements and intrigue are woven into the storyline, which kept the audience engaged in the horror-style story. The film was able to develop its characters, create relatable protagonists and explain elements of lore within the time and rating constraints.
The film utilizes themes of fear, corporate negligence, family dysfunction and nostalgia, to create an immersive cinematic experience that resonates with both fans of the game series and newcomers to the franchise. The themes of fear in this film manifests through suspenseful pacing, dimly lit settings and the bone-chilling movements of the animatronics. The film explored topics like corporate negligence through the sinister backstory of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza as it delves into the horrific actions of the company’s founder, William Afton, who allowed terrible incidents to happen in the establishment. These incidents were then poorly covered up and led the restaurant to close. The themes of family dysfunction are also evident in the relationships between the characters. The film examines the troubled pasts of the animatronics and how their pasts have driven them to their menacing behavior. Additionally, the protagonist’s motivations and backstory are connected to his own family, adding emotional depth and exploring the impact of family issues on the characters’ choices and actions. The most relevant theme utilized throughout this film is nostalgia, which played a significant role in the film's narrative. The film incorporates nostalgic elements from the original game series, such as a familiar setting, the run-down, retro pizzeria, and the iconic animatronics.
The movie plot remains consistent in explaining the missing children and how they were the first five children to die at the hands of William Afton, the owner of the Freddy Fazbear animatronics. They maintained this consistency with the video game without going into too much detail so as to stay within the confines of their PG13 rating. The censorship of the movie takes away from the overall quality of its horror considering its entire plot is about heinous crimes against children. Despite this, Cawthon was able to add multiple easter eggs throughout the movie like the FNAF minigame-themed intro, Phone Guy and even the jumpscare noise used by Foxy at the beginning of the film.
The movie deviates canonically in making Vannessa Shelly, who was introduced as an officer patrolling the area, William Afton’s daughter in a plot twist at the end of the movie. Her relationship with William Afton is inconsistent with canon lore from the game because her character is most similar to Vanny, an evil security guard introduced in the Security Breach game that was released in 2021. Abby, Michael Schmidt’s sister in the film, is supposed to represent Elizabeth Afton, William Afton’s youngest daughter in the series whose soul is trapped inside Afton’s animatronic named Circus Baby. The animatronics, Bonnie, Freddy, Chica and Foxy, attempt to make Abby one of them and force her into an animatronic suit that resembles Circus Baby. They are unsuccessful, but in the game, her fate is inevitable. She is single-handedly carried out by the Circus Baby animatronic.
By the end of the movie, Abby is able to remind the children of what William Afton had done to them through drawings and her ability to communicate with their ghosts, and the animatronics turned against their creator, causing the spring-locking mechanisms in his suit to malfunction. In the game series, Afton’s suit malfunctions on its own because of a design flaw and not because his animatronic creations had turned on him.
The “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie was well made given the movie’s length and amount of lore that had to be considered while writing it. There were flaws in terms of its canonical consistencies and censorship because of its PG13 content rating. The general fanbase of FNAF enjoyers that grew up with the game and its lore are now teenagers and young adults, and were not taken into consideration as the general target audience.
Written by Lys Evans, Contributing Writer and Elaina Irving, Contributing Writer.