Being a fan of the video game for a good portion of my life, I had low hopes and few expectations for the new Five Nights at Freddy’s movie. I can honestly say, I was pleasantly surprised.
Although I would not name it the movie to end all others, it had lots of qualities that made it worth watching.
Good animatronic design
The designs were well done, and as that was the main point of the film, it was crucial. I was worried that the animatronics would lack fluidity and look awkward overall, but was proved differently.
Solid character design
For the most part the characters are well-rounded. Abby, the younger sister, was a good representation of her age group while Vanessa, the older security guard, had dumb motives that didn’t make sense for her character.
Easy-to-follow storyline
Granted, an easy-to-follow storyline should be a given. With the FNAF franchise, however, there is much speculation about how everything fits together. The movie did well to explain the otherwise confusing paranormal elements while keeping the story moving. Unfortunately, this did come at the cost of more game-accurate details from across the games.
Predictability
Predictability is the killer of horror movies. Nearly all of the jumpscares and surprises could’ve been guessed 20 minutes before they happened, which brought down the horror aspect by a solid amount. Thankfully, it didn’t destroy the whole movie.
After all that, I would give a 7/10 to the FNAF movie.
