Five Nights at Freddy's Review
- Matt Hill
- Oct 31, 2025
- 3 min read
Runtime: 1h 50m Genre: Horror/Mystery Release Date: 25th October 2023
PLOT: In desperate need of a job to care for his sister, Abby (Piper Rubio), Mike (Josh Hutcherson) agrees to take a night shift security guard gig at a closed-down themed pizza restaurant. The problem is that night shift employees never last too long, especially when the haunted animatronics begin to show their true colours.
Thoughts
Video game adaptations have been doing incredibly well these past few years. That's not to say they've been great movies, but the recognised brand has helped them achieve monumental success and opened the door for other franchises to enter the adaptation ring.
This year's A Minecraft Movie ended its theatrical run just shy of the $1 billion mark; meanwhile, 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie exceeded $1.3 billion in 2023, ending its run as the year's second highest earner. Five Nights at Freddy's also made a (ahem) killing at the box office, finishing just shy of $300 million on a reported $20 million budget. As we gear up for the anticipated sequel releasing this December, it's time to look back at the horror game adaptation and see if it delivers the goods.
The story starts simply enough with Mike (Hutcherson) struggling to hold down a job. He spends his waking hours caring for his sister, Abby (Rubio), and his sleep reliving the abduction of his brother, trying to find any clues he might have missed from that day. After an altercation leaves him jobless, he's offered one final lifeline, a night security guard for the abandoned Freddy Fazbears Pizza.
The film introduces you to the cast, and the Freddy's animatronic terror starts to take place. Except, it doesn't. Instead, there's a real attempt to put a bigger backstory into the murderous animatronics, and a lot of the film is spent in Mike's lucid dreams reliving his brother's abduction. There's the odd slasher victim group to provide the horror action, but it's all very tame and pushed to the side in favour of the central focus of Mike's brother's kidnapping. It feels an odd choice, as most audience members will be heading to the theatres for the animatronic jump scares and killing. Instead, it's overshadowed in favour of a sideplot that doesn't provide enough interest to warrant its focus or unfold in an interesting way for it to take up so much of the movie.
The film also suffers from a tonal battle between wanting to be this spooky horror and being a light, yet endearing tale of the animatronics' past. It never manages to find the balance between the two, and part of that probably lies in the focus being pulled towards Mike's past rather than Freddy's cast. The odd jump scares are present as you'd expect, but they're all telegraphed too clearly. More disappointing is the film's horror action, devoid of threat and fear, with most deaths happening off-screen, making this one of the tamest 15 ratings you'll likely see. There isn't much Animatronic horror action either, and for a franchise built on thrills and scares, it feels like a massive letdown.
It's not a total misfire. There are some redeeming moments. The most obvious comes from the relationship between Mike and Abby as he tries to care for her, despite being wrapped up in his past. The character designs look great, and the film eventually finds more of its horror footing near the final third as the film reaches its climax.
In a Nutshell
For a movie about killer animatronics, Five Nights at Freddy's is incredibly tame. The central duo of Mike and Abby do a commendable job keeping you invested in the lacking plot, but it's not enough to rescue an underwhelming experience. Especially when the real stars become sidelined in a horror scarefest that's light on fear and thrills. Here's hoping the upcoming sequel can imbue the series with the thrills and horror the first is so desperately missing.
2/5
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