Five Nights at Freddy’s

The year’s most nonsensical horror-comic fails to scare or even to squeeze out a chuckle.

Stage frights: Inhabitants of the derelict pizzeria

There’s been quite a buzz surrounding Five Nights at Freddy’s. This is probably due, in part, to the massive fanbase of the video game, a multi-tiered franchise encompassing games, novels, comics, web art, construction sets, toys, keychains, et al. And the Halloween-timed release of the film has proved to be a real coup. But fame has never been a guarantee of quality and in spite of all the false starts and rewrites (at one point Chris Columbus was attached to direct), the resultant film is absurd.

The protagonists of the video game include the ringleader and lead singer Freddy Fazbear, as well as a guitarist-cum-rabbit called Bonnie, a chicken and backup singer called Chica, and Foxy, a pirate. As the backstory has it, they were once the star attractions of the long-abandoned pizzeria-cum-amusement arcade Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza and, when no one was looking, they liked to protect the place – by whatever means.

But what is this film version supposed to be? A horror film? A comedy? Social commentary? The marketing would seem to suggest the first-named, although it’s hard to be perturbed by a lumbering teddy bear in a top hat and bow tie. The animatronic antagonists are also handicapped by their sluggishness and lack of agility and are more comic than threatening in appearance. And yet, thanks to the alchemy of editing, they are able to do untold damage to their victims.

However, this improbability is the least of the film’s worries. The listless first act is hampered by the set-up of our human hero, Mike (Josh Hutcherson), an unsympathetic loser unable to hold down a job and who is prone to attack complete strangers with his fists. In sole custody of his little sister, Abby (Piper Rubio), he seems unable to put a foot right – and Abby doesn’t think much of him either. Thanks to a series of repetitive bad dreams, it transpires that Mike feels responsible for failing to protect his younger brother, who has never been seen since his abduction. So when Mike finally lands the unlikely job of night watchman at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, he knocks himself out with sleeping pills. And that’s when Fozzie Bear – sorry, Freddy Fazbear – and his cronies turn up to wreak their mayhem.

It’s hard to give a toss for Mike, to believe that a teddy can terminate you or that dreams can tear flesh. The one true moment is when the local police woman (Elizabeth Lail) admits, “it’s complicated.” The early promise of a sort of mash-up of Saw and Peter Rabbit is almost instantly squandered.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Mary Stuart Masterson, Matthew Lillard, Kat Conner Sterling, Tadasay Young, Joseph Poliquin, Michael P. Sullivan, Wyatt Parker, Lucas Grant. 

Dir Emma Tammi, Pro Scott Cawthon and Jason Blum, Screenplay Scott Cawthon, Seth Cuddeback and Emma Tammi, from a story by Scott Cawthon, Chris Lee Hill and Tyler MacIntyre, Ph Lyn Moncrief, Pro Des Marc Fisichella, Ed Andrew Wesman and William Paley, Music The Newton Brothers, Costumes Natalie O’Brien, Sound P.K. Hooker. 

Blumhouse Productions/Scott Cawthon Productions-Universal Pictures.
109 mins. USA. 2023. UK Rel: 25 October 2023. US Rel: 27 October 2023. Cert. 15 .