Hit videogame franchise makes for disappointing horror flick
Five Nights at Freddy’s
Starring Josh Hutcherson, Piper Rubio and Elizbeth Lali
Directed by Emma Tammi
PG-13
In theaters and streaming on Peacock Oct. 27
Based on a hugely popular videogame franchise, this misguided monster mash is a muddled fright-night mess about buried trauma, lost childhood, disappearing kids, ghosts, and a group of animatronic animals going rogue at an abandoned pizzeria. Think Chuck E. Cheese as a crazy creepshow.
Hunger Games actor Josh Hutcherson stars as Mike, a down-on-his luck security guard at a long-abandoned pizza parlor, Freddy Fazbear’s, where night work has an unusually high turnover rate. Elizabeth Lail (from TV’s Once Upon a Time) plays a helpful cop with a deep secret, and young newcomer Piper Rubio is Mike’s little sister, Abby, at the center of everything with a copious amount of crayon artwork “from beyond.” Matthew Lilard, a solid character actor in dozens of TV shows and movies for more than two decades, chews the scenery in his small but pivotal part.
Mike wrestles with nightmares about something that happened long ago…maybe it’s got something to do with the haunted pizzeria and its fatal fun-zone arcade? Do ya think?
How does one movie tie all that together? Well, in the case of this off-kilter robo-slasher backed by horror producer Jason Blum, not very well. It seems aimed at young teens and diehard gamers, with a handful of jump-scare jolts and only a tepid degree of real terror; the dialogue is often stiff and (unintentionally) laughable, the actors seem to forget they’re in a horror movie, and this wannabe fright flick fumbles and stumbles sustaining tension or dread in its cavernous “spook house” setting—like a particularly odd scene in which little Abby makes a play fort for a sleepover with the overstuffed Frankenbots.
Hey, there’s Mary Stuart Masterson, all grown up from the ‘80s and early ‘90s and her starring roles in Fried Green Tomatoes and Some Kind of Wonderful. And is the animatronic band really jiving to Lou Reed, and Johnny O’Keefe’s 1950s rockabilly hit “Wild One”? And singing The Romantics? Yep, and I gotta give the movie some props for making “Talking in Your Sleep,” the group’s biggest hit, sound even more ominous than it did back in 1983.
The creatures—a motley, distressed-looking ensemble that resembles shipwreck survivors washed ashore from the island of misfit toys, or mangy mascots for teams playing in a Twilight Zone league—will be familiar to fans of the videogames. But everyone else will likely feel like they’re being introduced to murderous, mangy, misunderstood Muppets. Maybe that’s because they’re full-size creations designed by the late Muppet-master Jim Henson’s iconic puppetry company. But I don’t remember Kermit the Frog ever opening his mechanized maw and chewing up someone’s face, Saw-style.
Five Nights at Freddy’s adds up to two hours of a clunky, junky pizzeria freak show, with an odd mix of toppings, extra carnage and served super cheesy.
—Neil Pond
The Media Tourist 