The iconic franchise of Five Nights at Freddy’s finally debuted on the big screen on Oct. 27, 2023. Created by Scott Cawthon in 2014, FNAF grew to become one of the biggest horror games of all time. The crazy amounts of lore in the games drew many fans, bringing a lot of attention to the game and helping it take off. With 11 official games and 19 books, the lore is quite convoluted and complicated but done well by Cawthon, making the timeline and details of his FNAF universe so interesting. Along with that, the games themselves are pretty scary, fun, and stressful. FNAF fans talked about the movie for years with no certain release date announced until this year. 

This movie did great with the practical animatronics made for the movie. Every animatronic looks so cool and exactly how I envisioned them looking in live-action. I also liked how the movie was shot, with Emma Tammi as the director. Seeing this franchise become a movie was special to me, as I used to play the games all the time and still play them to this day. For a franchise with confusing story, the movie does a pretty good job at making a straightforward story that still contains elements from the game’s lore. I also really enjoyed seeing members of the FNAF community in this film such as Mat Pat from Game Theory and CoryxKenshin. I love that two of the people who really thrust this franchise into the mainstream got to be in the movie. Along with that, having a horror legend, Matthew Lillard, in the movie added to the credibility of the creation of this film, and he delivered a quality performance. 

The movie isn’t perfect though, and has flaws that are pretty distracting. There are certain plot points that just don’t make sense. Not going to spoil anything, but the viewer understand certain things don’t make any sense or have logic behind it. I know it’s a movie about animatronic robots that kill people, but still, some of these plot holes are quite distracting. Josh Hutcherson’s performance came across as flat and didn’t feel like the character of Mike. In the games, Mike is very mournful but determined to get what he is looking for, and there are elements of that in Hutcherson’s portrayal of the character, but they aren’t as convincing as I had hoped for. That could just be me nitpicking, but was something I noticed. Elizabeth Lail’s Vanessa was the most frustrating character in the movie though. She withheld information for no reason which made the movie’s climax very predictable by the time she shared information. My final gripe with the movie would be its predictability. Most of the movie is very predictable, and that could be chalked up to my extensive knowledge of the lore, but one of my friends who wasn’t familiar with the lore could tell what was going to happen as well. This made the movie’s final stretch less enjoyable than I had expected. 

Even with that, I enjoyed most of this film. It’s not a great movie, per se, but as a fan of this franchise, I did enjoy how it was brought to the big screen, and it could’ve been done way worse. I would recommend this movie if you like horror or if you’re a fan of FNAF, but if you don’t watch, it you won’t be missing out on that much.