FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S: A DECADE OF CREEPY ANIMATRONICS 

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On Aug. 8, 2014, video-game developer Scott Cawthon released a very interesting game by the name of “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” It was a horror game, one Cawthon didn’t know would be as popular as it would soon become.

Within months, FNAF became an extremely popular game that creators all over the world began to share themselves as they played. With the terrifying jump scares that could come at any second, it filled its players with adrenaline and terror based upon a normally very happy venue: a children’s pizza parlor and its animatronic mascots, Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie the Bunny, Chica the Chicken, and Foxy the Pirate Fox.

Nine years after its original release, the game has become one of the most popular fan franchises in the world, with nine games total filled with terrifying interlocking lore. And now, it has spawned a movie: On Oct. 27, Freddy Fazbear hit the silver screen, brought to life by Universal Studios.

The FNAF fandom exploded with excitement, but unfortunately much of that was short-lived. “Five Nights at Freddy’s” follows the life of young Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) as he struggles to maintain employment in order to keep the custody of his younger sister, Abby (Piper Rubio). He becomes employed at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria and soon finds that the animatronics he is meant to watch over have come to life.

To the credit of the movie, it’s a very interesting take on the lore and background of the games. For people who have never played the games, the film could be a very satisfying experience – but many FNAF connoisseurs were disappointed with the performance.

My main issues are that the film added a lot of things to the lore that just wouldn’t make sense in the games. I understand the need to adapt certain things to be more cinematic, but completely changing the lore of a game was a pretty “interesting” decision.

I also was pretty disappointed with the lack of gore and jump scares included, considering that the games were based upon just that. I will say that for me – someone who isn’t a diehard member of the FNAF fandom – the take of having the Fazbear crew being friends with a child was intriguing enough for me to overlook some of those flaws.

Still, in sum, Five Nights was a very decent movie that could have been planned out a bit better.