Image: Blumhouse Productions and Universal Pictures
“Five Nights at Freddy’s” is the newest pop-culture phenomenon. Seriously, a modern horror movie that is as entertaining, humorous, imaginative, thrilling and interesting as this one has not come around in a long time.
In fact, I find “Five Nights at Freddy’s” to be a rarity nowadays. Right now, the kind of horror movies out there are often extremely wicked, disturbingly violent and full of gore. There is no sense of cinematic magic in any of them but only target a specific hardcore audience whose moral senses are totally absent.
I, for one, am not a fan of that kind of horror movies that are purely meant to make you vomit out of disgust, further numb the senses and scare you out of your wits. I go for horror movies that are well-crafted, have an excellent storyline and great actors. In short, horror movies that have a greater reason for existing. Five Nights at Freddy’s is exactly that.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s” brings me back to movies such as “Poltergeist,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “Gremlins,” “Freddy vs. Jason” and a little bit of the “It” movies that are lighter in the violence, disturbing scenes and blood aspects.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s” is a PG-13 version of a standard modern horror movie that is so superior that it appeals to not only video game fans on what it is based but also to horror fans in general.
For me, this is how you do a big-screen translation of a popular video game because “Five Nights at Freddy’s” manages to combine the memorable traits of the video game (jump scares, storyline, detective style of gaming, survival, the scary animatronic mascots, lighting, etc.) into one complete movie that can serve as a stand-alone or a movie that is certainly worthy of having a sequel.
I have seen “Five Nights at Freddy’s” twice already since the time it was made available. It is that entertaining to me, and as a general rule, I rarely watch a movie again right away, but this one got me motivated to do so. Why so? It was very well made. Plain and simple.
Prior to getting to seeing this movie, I made sure that I had tempered my expectations, and I came in with the mindset that the movie could be completely different, in terms of storyline, from its video game version, or it could be merely similar in some respects. Either way, I was still hoping for the best, and I was not disappointed at all with the movie.
Great acting from all of the actors in this movie. From top to bottom, from the major roles to supporting and extras, I was pleasantly surprised at how realistic, natural and grounded in reality their acting was despite the supernatural horror situations they found themselves in. Of course, it was a big help to have had Josh Hutcherson here. Besides that, you also have horror mainstay in Matthew Lillard from ‘Scream’ fame in a very important role that I will not reveal, but I do know that these said established actors play the most significant roles over everyone else in “Five Nights at Freddy’s.”
I am intentionally not revealing, discussing or talking about any specific scenes because I do not want to spoil this movie for anyone who has not seen it yet. Whether you have played the video game Five Nights at Freddy’s or not, trust me, its movie adaptation is most worth watching. You will not regret it. Then I would suggest that after seeing this movie, play the video game which will lead you to be mercilessly hooked to your video game console!
Indeed, a telling sign that the movie adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy’s did justice to the video game and expanded the lore of it is when people want to play the video game again and again precisely because they were not ticked off and so disgusted by its big screen translation. So, there is no question that it works and bodes well both ways when a video game and its movie adaptation are synchronized.
Now, to come, we got to prepare ourselves for an awful wave of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” rip-offs, copycats and B-level horror movies that are more meant for direct-to-video, online streaming and not-to-be-released in cinemas. Thankfully and most noteworthily, the movie adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy’s has intentionally veered away from such norm of cheap and haphazard knockoffs.
The biggest sign that this movie “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is a commercial hit and has connected and struck a nerve with moviegoers and casual fans is when so many other opportunistic people want to capitalize on its popularity and shamelessly copy it and create their own version of Five Nights at Freddy’s which borders on shameless plagiarism of an original creation.
And therefore, for me, it is something else that the creator (Scott Cawthon) of Five Nights at Freddy’s should also be proud of is that he is an original. He had an original idea. And he executed his idea to perfection. Scott Cawthon created a unique vision for a video game, a trend-setting theme, which has become a popular cultural phenomenon with his signature style of spooky, possessed animatronic animal mascots residing in a fictional closed-down fast-food restaurant. To be specific, his created possessed animatronic mascots, namely Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy have now made the successful leap onto the big screen and streaming services.
Scott Cawthon has found a literal diamond in the rough. And the rest of the world has begun to notice.
This is how a worldwide multi-media franchise exactly begins.
Indeed, Five Nights at Freddy’s is the newest pop-culture phenomenon!