“Five Nights at Freddy’s” (FNAF) was the talk of the town when I was growing up, and I always saw videos of the gameplay in my recommendations on YouTube. 

The game follows the night security guard, and the objective was to survive through each night against the animatronics. I remember thinking it looked so fun, but I never personally got around to playing it. 

I did, however, get a Bonny stuffed animal from Dave and Busters once because I was always so fascinated by how the animatronics looked. Despite not playing the game, I’ve always appreciated the story and the FNAF movie deepened that, especially as it played before me at the Cinemark in Myrtle Beach on opening night. 

I have always loved horror, and something about the movie’s trailer checked all my boxes. Creepy animatronics killing people? Count me in. 

Not to mention it has the incredible Josh Hutcherson and one of my favorite horror icons of all time, the amazing Matthew Lillard. I had no choice but to get my advanced ticket and see this nostalgic and legendary story come to life–or I guess, the creepy but somehow adorable animatronics come to life? 

The FNAF movie took the game and transformed it into something people can connect with and has just enough story for viewers to feel satisfied. It wasn’t just about surviving Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, but it was about the story of how the place came to be. I think this could’ve been elaborated on more in the movie, but I will take what I can get. 

It highlighted the home life of the main character, Mike, to give depth to the character. The main drive of the movie is how Mike is dealing with his childhood trauma all while raising his younger sister on his own. While each character had unique stories to tell, I do feel that the majority of the backgrounds presented just barely scraped the surface. 

I want to feel an emotion of theirs that isn’t just fear or grief. I also want to be teleported into the past of FNAF and see more about the origins. The writing was good, but just misses the mark of being great. 

As a massive horror fan, I feel like the jump scares and gore were a little too light to make me truly fear this group of deranged animatronics. That opinion may be subjective because I think their target audience was younger teens anyways, so I get the censorship. 

Don’t get me wrong, there were a few good scares, but that personally did not live up to my expectations. I remember this game being terrifying to the point I couldn’t sleep. But, sadly, I slept just fine the night after. 

Overall, I truly did enjoy the movie, but I just can’t help but want more than what was given. 

Do you think you could survive five nights at Freddy’s?