Back in 2015, a failed indie game developer received a review on his latest game, saying his characters were “creepy, and animatronic like”. That marks the beginning of, objectively, the single largest horror franchise in the game industry: Five Nights at Freddy’s. Scott Cawthon continued working on games (releasing over 6 sequels and an entire book franchise), and soon enough a movie was announced for the series. The latest installment being the release of the long awaited Five Nights at Freddy’s movie on Oct 27 2023.
Fans of the franchise have been waiting for this movie since it was announced eight years ago. The movie went through very rough patches, going from studio to studio and producing scripts allegedly reused for the “The Banana Splits Movie”, until Cawthon settled with Blumhouse.
But, now that it is released, was it really worth the wait?
With many easter eggs for fans to find and cameos from big members of the community, the movie gave more than enough content to enjoy.
“I liked that MatPat and [Coryxkenshin] were in it,” senior Owen Riley said.
It also included references that only a small part of fans would recognize, such as Dream Theory and MatPat’s character’s name being Ness.
Despite that, there is a divide in the community regarding the plot. Some think it could’ve been better.
“The overall plot was boring,” senior Akyiah Henderson said. “As a fan of the original games: the movie was disappointing.”
“The plot was a 4/10,” junior Yariel Montalvo said, “it started off boring and got interesting towards the end.”
Others think it was okay, not perfect, but it wasn’t bad either.
“I liked how realistic it was,” sophomore Gavin Byrne said.
“I thought the plot was okay,” senior Ben Pittman said. “The middle of it was pretty stupid, but the rest of it was good.”
However, students seemingly agree on one thing: the movie was not scary.
“The scary parts weren’t that scary,” Pittman said, “they were all collectively bad.”
“It’s a 7/10, wasn’t exactly scary, which was what I was hoping for,” Riley said. “I was hoping for a horror movie, but it was more of a kid’s movie.”
“I thought it was okay,” sophomore Anthony Czarneck said. “Maybe if it was scarier I would’ve liked it.”
Aside from people not finding it scary, the rest of the movie elements were good. Most members of the audience loved the animatronics and how the characters were executed.
“I liked Vanessa because of Security Breach, and out of the animatronics, Foxy has always been my favorite,” senior Megan Zamora said. “I really liked when he sung.”
“William,” sophomore Amelia Henderson said, “I think it was a fun twist how they made the career counselor the bad guy.”
People like different animatronics for different things, but there is a consensus on who one of the best animatronics was: Mr. Cupcake (also known as Carl by the community).
“Foxy or the Cupcake,” junior Jesse Singh said, “they did the most work.”
“Freddy, because he split that girl in half,” Pittman said. “Actually, Cupcake was also good, he stood on pure business.”
There were a couple scenes of the movie that have viewers on the edge, most notoriously: the fort scene. Some didn’t think it was a good choice to include it.
“When I saw that scene, I was like: ‘I don’t even know if I want to watch this anymore’,” Riley said. “It was a really goofy scene.”
“Fort scene was my favorite,” Montalvo said, “it was kind of goofy and bad, which made it good.”
Others thought it was on par with the series, showing a side of it that is not explored much.
“I liked that part, especially when they laid on the ground,” Zamora said, “because it showed the animatronics being kids.”
“I like that the made them (the animatronics) childish,” Henderson said. “The fort scene was really cute.”
Another strong point of contention is how well it represented the games. Because of the many book similarities some people think it didn’t appeal to the games much.
“It’s not really an adaptation, it feels more like a book adaptation,” Henderson said. “Especially with the drawing concept, it feels more like a ‘What If?'”
But others believe it did what it could, and maybe even more.
“I thought it was honest to the source material,” Riley said. “The first game didn’t give much to work off of, so I think they did the first game justice.”
The movie brought a wide variety of opinions. The culmination of eight years led to today where the movie blew up and has skyrocketed in popularity. The future of the franchise is unknown yet so bright. It has been confirmed as a trilogy, so who knows what people will think when those sequels comes out. Time will tell.
If you want to share your opinion of the movie, you can do so by voting in this poll!
