October 31st, 2023
Common Sense Media Age: 14+ Violence 4/5 Language 3/5
My Age Recommendation: 13+ (Due to some strong bloody violence, brief gory imagery, and some language).
When I first saw the trailer for this, I was not originally planning on watching this. I never liked the games, and I knew the fanbase for these games are wild, and my point was proven when I read an article about how rowdy theaters were on the release day of this movie because of the fans. I waited a couple days to go see it with a friend, and it ended up being entertaining but shockingly violent! The story follows a brother who is trying to take care of his sister since their parents are out of the picture after a family member was abducted when they were all little. The brother has a problem keeping jobs, and the last job with his track record that would hire them is the Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria that is now closed but still needs a night-guard. When the brother accepts the job, he takes the sister in for a couple days and the animatronics that used to run there seem to be moving on their own instead of the programmed patterns, and they leave a path of destruction behind them. Can the brother survive Five Nights at Freddy's? This was fun to watch and had a lot of potential, but it was not great at all. The story started off strong, but within 40 minutes the story was filled with holes and undeveloped characters that it seemed to go downhill from there. The visuals were great, but for the fanbase being a bunch of elementary schoolers with some older middle schoolers, this movie was shockingly violent. Don't get me wrong, it was entertaining due to some of the gore, but I was reminded afterwards that the targeted audience for this movie are 8-13 year olds, and there was a scene in which someone got chopped in half! The story was filled with holes and was rushing throughout, the pacing was uneven, and only the brother was characterized (a little bit), every other character seemed to just appear and disappear without characterization. I also wish they did more on the scary side of things, since there were creepy moments and a couple moments in which I thought a nasty jump scare was about to happen, but then it would just cut to black. There were many moments like those in which if they followed through and didn't just cut to another scene, I might have gotten scared since the build up for most of these scenes were really effective. Again, I did not expect much, but I was happy that I was entertained with the violence and a couple jump scares. Overall, I would say only a fan of Five Nights at Freddy's should watch this movie, as they probably would appreciate the easter eggs (not very subtle) throughout the movie and would definitely overlook the flaws.
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