“Five Nights at Freddy’s” started out as a horror game by Scott Hawthorn, released in 2014, where the player, a night shift security guard at the fictional Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, is tasked with keeping an eye on the abandoned building, and surviving against the haunted animatronics.

Development on the film initially started in 2015, with Warner Bros. Pictures, but over the years it has gone through multiple directors, writers, and production studios, before finally landing on Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions working closely with Hawthorn producing, and Emma Tammi directing.

The movie, released on Oct. 27, 2023, follows a similar premise to the games – the main character is Mike Shmidt, a 20-something who’s the sole caretaker of his younger sister after losing his younger brother and eventually both of their parents. Mike accepts the security job at Freddy’s out of desperation for some semblance of responsibility.

There’s certainly a clear intended target audience for this film, and even if critics have been harsh, that audience has been found and hardcore fans of the video games seem to be enjoying the film. As a movie that’s been repeatedly described as for the fans, there are many aspects of it that may be lost on people who don’t know the lore behind the games they’re based on.

The main character, Mike, is played by actor Josh Hutcherson, who got his start in the late 2000s in the movie “Bridge to Terabithia” and is most famous for portraying the character Peeta Melark in the “Hunger Games” film franchise. He does well in the role, but the real show-stealer is Matthew Lillard, who plays the antagonist of the film – William Afton. 

Lillard is most well known for his ‘90s and ‘00s roles such as Shaggy in “Scooby Doo” and one half of the original Ghostface Killer duo in 1996’s “Scream”. His role in “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is certainly a return to his comedy and horror roots.

The animatronics were also show-stealers, in their own right. Unlike most modern movies, the non-human characters weren’t brought to live post-production with CGI – the filmmakers teamed up with the Jim Henson Creature Shop to create puppets that would be brought to life on set alongside the actors. 

There are certainly good aspects to the movie – from Lillard’s performance to the animatronics to the fun and creepiness that came with the colorful, abandoned ‘80s arcade setting – but there are pitfalls, as well.

Most glaringly, what has possibly been the most divisive aspects of the film – its PG-13 rating and the insistence that it was made for the fans. 

It is a horror movie with a PG-13 rating, which means a lot of the scariest scenes cut away right before there’d be a possibility for gore. The movie is based on a game that is aimed at younger audiences, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the movie stays faithful to a lower level of horror and gore, but what’s left to the imagination at each cut away can certainly feel disappointing to more hardcore horror fans. 

As for the story itself, plenty of people that are fans of the game or otherwise know the story that goes along with it in depth do seem to be enjoying and understanding the film to its fullest, but there are some elements to it that end up falling completely flat and leave questions for people who go into it blind.

Overall, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is a fun movie, and well deserving of the solid 5.5/10 it currently holds on IMDb.