Film Review: FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S (2023): Creatures Haunt an Abandoned Pizza Shop in a Bizarre but Occasionally Intriguing Movie

Five Nights at Freddy’s Review

Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023) Film Review, a movie directed by Emma Tammi, written by Scott Cawthon, Seth Cuddeback and Emma Tammi and starring Josh Hutcherson, Piper Rubio, Elizabeth Lail, Matthew Lillard, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kat Conner Sterling, David Lind, Christian Stokes, Joseph Poliquin, Grant Feely, Asher Colton Spence, David Huston Doty, Liam Hendrix, Jophielle Love, Tadasay Young, Michael P. Sullivan, Wyatt Parker and Lucas Grant.

Five Nights at Freddy’s is something of a companion piece to Willy’s Wonderland, a 2021 Nicolas Cage film which had a very similar premise as the new picture. Both films are mainly set in an abandoned dark place where animatronic creatures roam looking to wreck havoc on those who get in their way. Josh Hutcherson stars in the strangely eccentric new movie, Five Nights at Freddy’s, as a young man looking for work who comes upon a job as a nighttime security guard for a place called Freddy Fazbear’s which is a glorified pizza restaurant. Fazbear’s is a throwback to places of the 1980’s where video games and fast food took center stage and kids came to have a good time.

Hutcherson plays Mike who has a history of losing his brother (Lucas Grant) at a barbecue years back as well as being hostile and overly aggressive to anyone who even looks like he or she is kidnapping a child. Mike meets with Matthew Lillard’s job finder character who doesn’t seem to have something steady for the impulsive Mike. Lillard says that he does have one job, however, that Mike could possibly do which is a night security position at Freddy Fazbear’s, an abandoned old beaten-down place that seems to be around just for the hell of it.

Mary Stuart Masterson co-stars as Aunt Jane who doesn’t think Mike is capable of taking care of his younger sister, Abby (Piper Rubio). Aunt Jane wants nothing more than to separate the siblings and she needs to discover a way to do so even if it involves manipulating the truth. At one point, characters consider trashing Freddy Fazbear’s to get Mike in trouble. They proceed to do that but with dire consequences.

Freddy is a robotic bear who has a few animatronic animal friends like Chica, an oversized robot chicken. There is a secret behind these creatures and what motivates their actions. When Mike encounters child ghosts, the plot starts to develop as we learn why, exactly, these animatronic creatures are haunting the pizza place and why they don’t like it when people bother to come inside their shut down establishment.

Elizabeth Lail plays a neighborhood patrol officer named Vanessa who serves as a potential love interest for Mike but things get complicated between them when Freddy’s is wrecked. Could Vanessa be hiding a secret? There are plenty of surprises in this story line which makes the plot hard to discuss but the overall look of the creatures is definitely reminiscent of Willy’s Wonderland. This new film obviously had a more generous budget, though, from the looks of things.

In the movie, Hutcherson plays his heroic part decently but seems to lack the charisma necessary to be a leading man in a movie where a good personality could have helped out the character development a great deal. Instead, Hutcherson is rather one-note in his role as the protective brother who must eventually save his sister, Abby, when she becomes involved in the action of the plot. There’s a reason everything happens the way it does in the movie and the story offers convoluted plot details and mindless animatronic character interactions.

Yet, the charisma lacking in the character of Mike is present in his sister, Abby, and Rubio gives a star-making turn in this rather inane but watchable horror movie. Rubio interacts with the animatronic creatures in creative ways which helps maintain the audience’s attention.

Mary Stuart Masterson hasn’t been in a high-profile film that I’ve seen for some time and makes a nice comeback here in a small but necessary role. You’ll love hating her character. Matthew Lillard all but steals the show and adds some terrific creepiness to his job hunter character who comes back into the action later on thanks to some intriguing developments within the script.

Are the animatronic characters in the movie any good? Not really. Freddy, in particular, is rather dull and Chica and company are initially interesting but end up coming off as more laughable than scary, for whatever reason. Perhaps that is intentional. There is a fair share of twisty plot details that will make every day audiences invested in the action and that saves the film from becoming a disaster.

Five Nights at Freddy’s is a throwback to the old school 1980’s form of entertainment that kids used to embrace. Back then, kids loved their pizza, their video games and their offbeat cartoon characters. Today, they probably do too, but the atmosphere is much different now than it was then. We have cell phones, for one, which keeps kids from needing arcade games as much. This movie makes one yearn for the fun times you could have had several decades ago at a place like Freddy Fazbear’s.

If Nicolas Cage’s Willy’s Wonderland wasn’t so silly and entertaining, Five Nights at Freddy’s would have come off as a bit more interesting. Now, it basically feels like just a bigger budget version of Cage’s small movie that not too many people really got to see. However, the new movie has the twists that young audiences will admire and think are genius. Us old-timers know better, though, and would probably rather see Cage face off with animatronic creatures than the bland Hutcherson.

Rating: 6/10

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