Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023) review

“Five Nights at Freddy’s is a 2023 horror film based on the video game released in 2014, which has spawned nine sequels and DLCs. It’s a game my youngest son knows all about. The 7-year-old likes to watch people play the video game because he enjoys things that creep him out. I was going to let him watch this, but his mother wisely suggested not to. I say ‘wisely,’ not because I think it would have been too scary, but because I don’t want the first movie to scar my child to be this blasé piece of furniture.

Five Nights at Freddy’s follows Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson), who has had issues ever since his brother went missing when he was young. He is haunted by the past and can’t keep down a job, but he must because he has to take care of his sister (Piper Rubio), or else his evil aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson) will whisk her away like some ’90s ABC TV show evil stepmother. When he loses his job, he goes to a career counselor (Matthew Lillard). The only job available for him is a security gig at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The place is rundown and no longer in service, but it was a bustling place in the ’80s. Now it houses several rundown large animatronic animals… that may be alive.

Have you seen a bad PG-13 horror movie? Then you’ve seen this. Yep, nothing new here. I can’t stand bad dialogue, and this movie is full of it. That’s where the real horror lies, in the script. Everything is played out before us; it’s what we’ve seen before, and we get a lot of it.

It’s like the recent Godzilla movies; all we want is Godzilla/Animatronic Animals, and we get way too much backstory on characters we don’t care about. They try really hard for us to care, way too hard. There isn’t anything new, fresh, or exciting for us to care. Josh Hutcherson isn’t convincing in the father-like role, and the aunt, Mary Stuart Masterson, belongs in a cartoon-y over-the-top Disney Channel show. And then there is the cop.

This cop, Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), takes a special interest in our main character and his new job. Apparently, the police in this area have nothing better to do than check up on people they don’t know. Obviously, she knows more than she’s letting on but won’t say until it’s too late. Everyone loves a character who knows something but keeps it to themselves.

Friday Night at Freddy’s was made for children or young teens who haven’t seen a lot of movies, let alone horror movies. There is one scene that gave me pause, and that I would have covered my son’s eyes for, but other than that, this is a bloodless endeavor that should have been about 40 minutes shorter.”