Title – Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023) 

Director – Emma Tammi (The Wind) 

Cast – Josh Hutcherson, Mary Stuart Masterson, Matthew Lillard

Plot – Security guard Mike (Hutcherson) begins a new job at the long abandoned Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza where he quickly learns that this is not a typical straightforward job he was looking for. 

“Can you survive?”

Review by Eddie on 02/11/2023

For all the numerous video game properties tailored made for a big screen adaptation, Scott Cawthon’s low-budget 2014 point and click horror that managed to become a worldwide sensation doesn’t scream feature film but thanks to the ever-savvy minds behind the Blumhouse horror brand, close to a decade on from first appearing in the wild, Five Nights at Freddy’s has arrived. 

Shrugging off mostly negative critical reviews to make an astounding $130 million global box office haul in its opening weekend against a reported $20 million budget, the pizza and fizzy drink is likely flowing at the Blumhouse head office right now with director Emma Tammi’s iteration of Cawthon’s tale (one he produced and co-wrote) becoming an instant smash hit but while fans of the game series are going to have a field day with the films many Easter eggs and throwbacks/callbacks, Tammi’s film is a messy adaptation of a relatively simple premise and one that quickly loses steam after a decent opening act. 

There was always going to be issues for whoever decided to take on the Freddy’s property with the games simple ideas and presentation not exactly the type of deep material ripe for the narrative expansion treatment and that’s where Tammi and her creative team find the most trouble, as their film becomes something it never really needed to be as Josh Hutcherson’s boorish main protagonist Mike the security guard making for a bland and charisma free central premise as he enters into the world of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. 

A man traumatised by his troubled past and battling the present as he attempts to fend for his younger sister Abby, Tammi tries to give us a reason to care for Mike on more than a surface level but when we keep getting drawn further into Mike’s world and taken out of the films best asset, the pizzeria itself, we are constantly thrown into terribly designed and narratively misguided angles, making Freddy’s one of the most nonsensical and hard to take features of the year. 

You don’t watch these type of films and particularly not one with the Five Night’s brand attached too it for a rich narrative experience but that doesn’t excuse Tammi from taking us on such a constantly head scratching journey and while early on there’s menace and intrigue around the pizzeria and the history of its far from cuddly animatronic inhabitants, when furniture forts, evil dream children and incompetent police officers take centre stage the film really goes off the rails and becomes a genuine misfire deserving of all the critical drubbings.  

With news already surfacing that more Freddy is on its way thanks to the free flowing box office receipts of recent days, we can only hope that the glimmers of something decent seen in this first iteration can find their way to the forefront in the next big screen adventure. 

Final Say – 

With an uninteresting human lead, an increasingly outlandish plot and an unbalanced approach to its group of bloodthirsty robots, Five Night’s at Freddy’s may find ways to appease the most positive of fans but judged on its own merits, this is a misfire in need of some serious rewiring. 

1 1/2 missing babysitters out of 5