The film adaptation of FNAF is fascinating, even if you haven’t played the games | News, sports, jobs

To get this out of the way, I will admit to all of you that I have never played the Five Nights at Freddy’s video games. I learned what I know about this particular universe by listening to my younger brother talk about lore and also TikTok (who once felt the need to share detailed backstories with me).

However, being a horror fan, based on what little knowledge I had, I knew I had to give the film based on this franchise a chance.

In Five Nights at Freddy’s, Josh Hutcherson plays troubled security guard Mike Schmidt, who is struggling with his own trauma while caring for his young sister Abby after their parents die.

In order to retain custody of Abby, Mike must secure a job. This is a bit difficult as he carries the trauma of losing his little brother Garrett when they were children. This trauma causes him to lose jobs and have difficulty falling asleep as he tries to manipulate his dreams to tell him more information about the day of Garrett’s kidnapping.

One day, however, Mike gets lucky when his career counselor Steve Raglan (Matthew Lillard) offers him security at the closed Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria.

Now we as viewers know from the start that something is wrong with this seemingly normal pizzeria. (Perhaps we witnessed why exactly this job was open to Mike from the start.)

Mike taking on this security job opens up a whole new world for both him and Abby, as both – along with the help of mysterious police officer Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) – uncover even more terrible truths about the abandoned children’s restaurant and the oversized restaurant-life Animatronics that it houses.

There’s so much lore that Five Nights at Freddy’s could choose to cover it, but they rightly chose to keep it to the bare minimum – something I really appreciated as a newcomer to the universe.

We get the basic understanding of the troubling pizzeria along with Mike’s backstory – although as far as I know the security guard wasn’t usually given backstory in the games – in an easy to understand way. For those who have never heard of this franchise, it’s a great introduction.

Not to mention, it still offers little Easter eggs for those dedicated to video games. My brother and fellow reviewer Bre (who reviewed the games, by the way) have mentioned a few of these to me… although they mostly overwhelm me.

The cast of this film was always well chosen – especially Lillard. When he takes the stage, you know it’s going to be a good film. He’s not in the film for a long period of time, but he definitely captivates you at times.

And Hutcherson does a good job of portraying the psychologically wounded and tormented Mike. Even before we learn about his backstory, we can see that he has some demons.

I also can’t ignore the star of this series – the animatronics. Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy and Mr. Cupcake all have some deeply tragic and disturbing backstories. While we don’t get all the gory details about how they came to be what they are, the story behind these ghostly animatronics is no less horrifying. I think for me this is true horror. I won’t go into why that is, just in case you’re interested in checking it out, but… you feel bad for these poor guys.

However, that doesn’t make the giant animatronics any less terrifying. I mean – if a giant eight-foot-tall bear in a top hat came at me, I would probably shit my pants. (There’s a reason for Chuck E. Cheese that goes beyond the sticky tables and loud noises.)

My favorite part of the entire film is the practical effects. This franchise could have easily opted to use only CGI to create the characters, but instead, with the help of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, the animatronics are all larger than life and extremely realistic. I thought it was super cool that Blumhouse – the studio that financed the film – used puppeteers and real props instead of the CGI police officer. (I don’t hate CGI, I just like things to look more realistic and hold up over the years.)

Overall, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” was a really entertaining horror film for me. It had just enough blood and horror and introduced a newbie like me to the FNAF universe in an easy to understand way.

The critics, not surprisingly, didn’t like it as much as I did. But my guess is that many people have way too high expectations for the game given the popular video game series it’s based on. In my opinion, you always have to hold back your expectations a little when making adjustments. It can be difficult to completely transfer something from one medium to another, and you can never expect it to be exactly how you want it.

A second film is even planned for “Five Nights at Freddy’s”, which will be based on the second part of the video game series. I, for one, look forward to learning more about this universe and the other horrors it hides.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s” is rated PG-13 and can be viewed with a subscription on Amazon Prime Video.

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Laura Jameson is editor-in-chief of The Express.