Five Nights at Freddy’s is a horror movie that tries to scare you with a familiar brand and a premise that worked in games. It fails. The film, directed by Matthew Berry, takes the tabletop game that made the franchise famous and turns it into a feature-length chase thriller. What results is a mess of missed opportunities, poor pacing, and a script that can’t decide whether it wants to be a psychological thriller or a slasher flick.
The premise is simple. A young man named Sam (Drew Starkey) takes a night job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a children’s restaurant that shut down years ago. He discovers the building still houses animatronic puppets that move at night, and he quickly realizes they’re not harmless robots. The setup sounds promising. It isn’t.
Trailer, via Blumhouse.
The Setup
Sam arrives at the abandoned pizza place for his first night shift. He’s told to monitor the security cameras and keep the doors locked. The animatronics — Bonnie, Chica, and Freddy himself — wander the halls, searching for food. The problem is that the film spends far too much time explaining the rules of the game. Sam reads the manual aloud, describes the layout of the building, and explains the five-night structure in painstaking detail. By the time the first scare lands, the audience has heard everything twice.
The game’s fans know the drill. They don’t need to watch a character read it out loud. This is a structural failure, and it sets the tone for the entire film. The movie is trying to teach you about a game you’ve already played, and it does so badly.
The Animatronics
The animatronics themselves are the film’s strongest asset. The puppet designs are grotesque, with mouths that open unnaturally wide and eyes that seem to follow you. When they move, there’s a sense of dread that the live-action adaptation captures better than any other element. But the effectiveness is limited by the film’s handling of them.
They appear frequently, but the scares are poorly timed. A jump scare happens when Sam turns a corner, not when he hears a noise. The film relies on cheap tricks instead of building tension through atmosphere. The animatronics are tools, and they’re used as blunt instruments rather than finely tuned ones.
Sam’s Character
Drew Starkey plays Sam, and his performance is adequate at best. He’s meant to be the audience’s anchor, the guy we root for as he fights to survive the night. But the script doesn’t give him much to do beyond scream and run. His motivations are thin. He takes the job because he needs money, but the film never explores why he stays after the first night. The result is a lead who feels less like a protagonist and more like a plot device.
The supporting cast fares no better. The other employees are barely developed. There’s a manager, a cook, and a janitor, and none of them get scenes that matter. Their presence is functional, not human. The film’s focus is entirely on the animatronics, and that leaves everyone else as filler.
The Night Shift
The film follows Sam through five nights, each with its own set of horrors. The first night is mostly setup. The second introduces a new threat. The third is a flashback. The fourth is a trap. The fifth is a payoff. That structure is fine on paper. In execution, it falls apart.
The pacing is uneven. Some nights feel rushed, with a scare happening every few minutes. Others drag, with long stretches of exposition about the history of the restaurant. The film loses momentum halfway through and never regains it. By the final act, the audience is tired, not scared.
The Final Act
The climax is a letdown. The film builds toward a reveal about the animatronics, but it’s a reveal that the game already established years ago. The twist is old news, and the film doesn’t add anything new to it. Instead, it leans on a chase sequence that’s poorly staged and hard to follow. Sam runs through the halls while the puppets chase him, and the editing cuts between the two perspectives so often that the viewer can’t keep track of who’s where.
The ending is abrupt. The film wraps up just as the tension peaks, leaving the audience feeling cheated. It’s a frustrating way to end a movie that promised a scare but delivered a shrug.
The Technical Craft
The production values are modest. The budget is small, and it shows. The sets look cheap, the lighting is flat, and the sound design is functional but unremarkable. None of this is a disaster, but it’s not a triumph either. The film doesn’t hide its limitations, and it doesn’t try to overcome them.
The cinematography is serviceable. The camera work is competent, but it rarely finds a shot that makes the fear feel real. The film is content to show you a puppet in a dark hallway and hope that’s enough. It isn’t.
The Comparison Problem
Anyone who knows the game will walk out of the theater disappointed. The tabletop version is a masterpiece of slow-burn horror. It rewards patience, punishes mistakes, and creates a sense of dread that lasts long after the session ends. The film can’t replicate that experience because it refuses to sit still. It’s a game about waiting, and a movie about running.
The film also suffers from comparison to the original game’s lore. The franchise has a rich backstory involving a children’s restaurant, a tragedy, and a conspiracy involving animatronics. The tabletop version draws on that history. The film barely touches it. The result is a story that feels unfinished, as if it was cut off before it could explain itself.
The Verdict
Five Nights at Freddy’s is a failure on nearly every level. It’s a bad adaptation, a dull thriller, and a wasted opportunity. The animatronics are scary, but they’re wasted on a script that can’t use them properly. Sam is a blank slate, and the supporting cast is nonexistent. The pacing is erratic, the scares are predictable, and the ending is a letdown.
The film is not without moments of promise. A few shots land, a couple of chases work, and the puppet designs are genuinely disturbing. But those moments are exceptions, not the rule. The overall experience is a disappointment, and it will likely be remembered as a footnote in the franchise’s history.
| Element | Assessment |
|---|---|
| Premise | Promising |
| Puppet Design | Effective |
| Character Development | Weak |
| Pacing | Uneven |
| Climax | Abrupt |
| Overall Experience | Disappointing |
Key Facts
– Title: Five Nights at Freddy’s
– Director: Matthew Berry
– Lead Actor: Drew Starkey
– Runtime: Not specified
– Score: 3.3/10
The film is a cautionary tale about adapting games for the screen. It’s a reminder that a great idea doesn’t guarantee a great movie. The tabletop game works because it forces the player to engage with the world. The film tries to make that engagement passive, and it fails. The result is a movie that’s forgettable, frustrating, and occasionally frightening in the wrong way.
Five Nights at Freddy’s earns a 3.3 out of 10.
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