5 Naps at Freddy's

I have no idea if 5 Nights at Freddy's is the adaptation fans of the game franchise have been waiting on or not but for everyone else this is a pretty drab affair.

Josh "Hunger Games" Hutcherson needs a job in order to keep custody of his little sister so he starts work as a night time security guard at an abandoned children's theme restaurant where no employee lasts more than a week. The lack of worker retention probably has something to do with the living animatronics that stalk the hallways but our hero doesn't care about any of that as he's much more interested in catching Z's so he can dream about the day his little brother was abducted in the hope of remembering details of the abductor, something which seems to be helped by the supernatural goings on at Freddy's. He is periodically visited Elizabeth Lail's local police women (she seems to be the entirety of the local police force) who is in turns flippant, cryptic and angry about the possessed mascot situation.

I suppose you could give the writers credit for adding some layers to the story and they did have to come up with a reason for the protagonist to keep returning, it isn't called One Night at Freddy's after all, but their choices leave the film with two major problems. Firstly, the flippancy with which living animatronics are treaty in the world is insane. When Hutcherson finds out about them being alive he more or less shrugs his shoulders and lets them have a play date with his little sister and at one point one of them even goes for a ride in a taxi. You may be thinking this is a all done with a wink and a nudge but it definitely isn't, there may be a couple of light hearted moments but this movie is taking itself deadly serious. The other, bigger, issue is that sidelining the killer robots in favour of scene after scene of the same dream sequence makes Five Nights at Freddy's boring. The film often feels like its stalling for time and there isn't enough atmosphere to sustain interest while little is happening.

It isn't all bad, it does have some atmosphere and youngster Piper Rubio is great as the main characters endangered little sister. Mathew Lillard is fun, although his appearance early on pretty much telegraphs a later reveal. The brother trying to raise his kid sister dynamic is a good idea and adds some emotional depth to the story it just never quite feels natural enough.

Maybe this really hits the spot for fans of the games but it's quite possible it just wasn't something that was going to translate to a good film while staying faithful to the source material. It's also hard to ignore the fact there is a much more entertaining take on this premise out there in 2021's Willies Wonderland. It may be a different type of film (and have a lower budget) but I'll take Nic Cage fighting murderous animatronics over Josh Hutcherson being sleepy any day of the week.

5 killer cupcakes out of 10.

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