Movie Review: Five Nights at Freddy’s

The latest film from the horror film studio Blumhouse, Five Nights at Freddy’s, proves to be not only less of a typical horror product from the studio, but also more of a family-friendly and engaging story than one might expect from the genre.

The film opens as a troubled security guard named Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is let go from his current security assignment. Soon after this he begins work at a dilapidated pizza/arcade called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Over the course of his first night on the job, Mike notices several odd occurrences that suggest the job may not be the cake-walk assignment it was presented as. Subsequent evenings prove even more harrowing as it appears that the animatronic characters designed as entertainment in the arcade may, in fact, harbor homicidal tendencies.

Scott Cawthon, along with director Emma Tammi, and Seth Cuddeback pen a screenplay based on the video game series Cawthon originally created. What is intrinsically entertaining here though is how thoroughly enjoyable the story proves to be. While it had the opportunity to be a disturbing and gore-centric horror piece centered around rogue killer robots, the film refrains from becoming such. It remains, at its core, a story about a brother and a sister trying to hold their relationship together after a life of unspeakable tragedy. That central theme allows for more character development and plot nuance than most films of this sort even remotely come close to.

Although it comes from the world of Blumhouse Productions, Five Nights at Freddy’s is less like anything the studio has offered before and more of a departure to a horror film that is more thriller than horror and something the whole family may be able to enjoy. While the film has its fair share of tense and often scary moments, they are more of the family-friendly type of moments than those that Blumhouse is typically known for.

Director Emma Tammi does a fine job of keeping the story centered on Mike and his sister Abby (played by standout Piper Rubio) and their relationship and struggles to keep their family together, despite the rising forces seemingly against them doing so. There is an earnestness at work in the way the story of the troubled siblings is told in that it plays more like drama with slight elements of horror than vice versa, which makes everything work far more effectively.

Piper Rubio in “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” Photo Courtesy of Universal Pictures – © Universal Pictures.

Well-orchestrated editing courtesy of William Paley and Andrew Wesman allow the film to proceed at a crisp pace that never allows the action to slow down long enough to become uninteresting or plodding. A nostalgic allotment of song cues and a particularly moody score by the Newton Brothers assist in moving the film along with ease.

It is the work of Hutcherson as Mike and Rubio as Abby that shine through the often-dark tale to make the film work as an uplifting tale of redemption and familial love rather than something trivial like simply surviving the attack of a cadre of bloodthirsty animatronic animals.

While it may appear more horror film than anything else, there is far more at work in Five Nights at Freddy’s than initially meets the eye. It is for this reason that it may be the best offering from Blumhouse Productions to date.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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