On October 27th, Blumhouse Productions released the horror movie Five Nights at Freddy’s in theaters and on Peacock, a TV streaming platform. The movie is based on Scott Cawthon’s game franchise, “Five Nights at Freddy’s”, which includes seven horror games that connect to create a storyline around William Afton, the animatronics creator. While some like the movie, some fans believe it does not follow their expectations, and horror fans disagree with calling it an actual horror movie.

The movie focuses on Michael Schmidt, played by Josh Hutcherson, the new night guard at the closed-down Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, interviewed by Steve Raglan, played by Matthew Lillard, commonly known for his roles of Shaggy from Scooby Doo and Stu Macher in Scream, in which, with his horrible record of jobs in the past, he had to accept. He is put to the challenge where he must defend his sister and himself from possessed animatronics. The animatronics in the movie act vicious towards Mike and other characters when he does his night shifts alone, until Mike and his little sister go to the pizzeria together and they begin to act friendly due to the robots being possessed by children’s spirits. The movie’s new emotional tone adds excitement but, with that, ruins the scare. Having the animatronics acting innocent and playful is a good and unexpected viewpoint, but it is not how the games portrayed them, as frightening and cryptic. 

The movie, in my own opinion, wouldn’t be that bad – if I didn’t know and play the games myself. The movie is based on more of the general games together, rather than just Five Nights at Freddy’s 1, it consists of multiple games with different ideas from each. This for me is awkward with the plot, and makes it unable to create a second movie – although Universal Studios speaks on a second movie possibly happening.