What Critics And Fans Are Saying About Five Nights At Freddy's
"Five Nights At Freddy's" just premiered in theaters and on Peacock, and the adaptation of a much-loved horror video game is already garnering strong reactions from fans and critics alike. While some folks flocking to theaters have been waiting nearly a decade to see the animatronic antics of Freddy Fazbear and his murderous friends on screen, newcomers to the franchise are also getting the chance to see what the fuss (or should I say fuzz?) is all about.
Though the "Five Nights At Freddy's" game franchise created by Scott Cawthon features nine video games and assorted spinoffs and the complex lore to match, the new movie introduces the universe with a seemingly simple premise. What if a night-time security guard (Josh Hutcherson) at a Chuck E. Cheese-type pizza joint ends up discovering that the robot animals meant to entertain kids during the daytime actually come alive at night? Add in a backstory about kids who were killed on the premises whose bodies were never found, and you've got yourself a recipe for nightmare fuel.
Now that "Five Nights At Freddy's" is out, it's worth finally asking: is it any good? Here's what critics, fans, and the /Film team have to say so far.
What does /Film think?
Though "Five Nights At Freddy's" has already proved polarizing, the team at /Film is a lot less split on the film than critics at large. Jeremy Mathai reviewed the movie for the site, giving it a 7 of 10 score and calling it "the year's most charming and unabashedly kid-friendly horror flick." Mathai praised the film's humor as well as the surprising amount of screen time the movie devoted to "[exploring] weightier themes than audiences may be expecting," and said that while it harnesses a "low-budget, minimalist sense of filmmaking, there's an immense amount of fun to be derived from Tammi's innate, almost Hitchcockian understanding of old-school shooting techniques and barebones scares."
Critic and editor BJ Colangelo agrees. In a Twitter post, Colangelo wrote that the movie works well as "a gateway flick to both horror & camp comedy, and a clear 'thank you' to the diehard fans." Though she says it's only "slightly scary," she also calls it "a whole lot of fun." /Film writer Bill Bria also has good things to say, sharing via Twitter that the movie "is a surprisingly solid time." Bria shouts out Hutcherson and co-star Matthew Lillard and the "good sense of mystery" cultivated by director Emma Tammi. He also notes that the movie isn't just for die-hard fans, writing, "It doesn't super alienate newcomers like I feared."
Both Bria and /Film's Senior News editor Jacob Hall praised the film's animatronics, with Hall writing that "the Henson Shop creatures are honestly pretty magnificent" in a Twitter reaction to the film. Hall also makes a comparison to another beloved kids' horror franchise, calling the film "some real R.L. Stine-flavored nonsense" that will "make a whole bunch of 8-year-old kids feel brave enough to become horror fans and therefore exists firmly on my good side." The world needs more Goosebumps-adjacent horror stories!
What are critics saying?
Despite the fairly warm reception from the /Film squad, not all critics agree that "Five Nights At Freddy's" is worth a watch. The film currently holds a disappointing 24% Rotten Tomatoes score, which means only one in four of the writers whose reviews made it onto the aggregate shared a positive critical response. In IndieWire's review, Wilson Chapman called the movie a "middling, pulseless version of the game" with a lone jump scare. "The movie withholds scares or danger from the animatronics for a long time," Chapman writes, noting that the filmmakers made "a severe miscalculation of how much horror needs to be in a film for it to actually be a horror film."
For IGN's review, A.A. Dowd praises the original video game but notes that the backstory-heavy movie doesn't live up to it. "Here, the title proves less of a promise of escalating nocturnal danger than an excuse to break up the supposed horror with endless daytime soap," Dowd writes. The critic praises the movie's monster design, but notes that it "doesn't seem entirely sure of how scary it's allowed to make them."
Across the board, critics seem to note the movie's tone issues, but even negative reviews tend to praise its monster designs and a few performances. Nerdist's Javier Reyes wrote that the movie becomes boring and gets "trapped in itself," but also said young star Piper Rubio "delivers on the kind of humor that only kids could possibly pull off." Still, there are some positive reviews, including from Movie Freak's Sarah Michelle Fetters, who compares the film positively to '80s Disney flicks like "The Watcher in the Woods" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes." Critics who like the film tend to label it a gateway horror movie, meaning it might not scare grown-ups, but will thrill the heck out of little ones.
What are fans saying?
Fans of "Five Nights At Freddy's" games so far seem a bit split on the film, but it seems to be hitting better with them than with critics overall. A Twitter user with the handle @PhantomIchigo shared a super-positive first reaction to the film, posting that the movie was "incredible" and 100% worth the wait." The user praised the movie's inclusion of fan-friendly Easter eggs and also teased a cameo that "made [them] jump for joy!"
As with any movie that fans have high expectations for, not everyone was so complimentary. A Twitter user with the handle @j_strimbu joked, "Five Nights at Freddys was awful. 10/10 would recommend you all go see it." In a follow-up post, they clarified that the movie was "genuinely enjoyable," but also suffers from "some horrendous tone issues and some writing issues."
Adults who saw the film were also able to report back about how kids reacted to it, and on that front, responses seem largely positive. Writer and horror filmmaker Xanthe Pajarillo, who is currently studying childhood fear in a PhD program, noted that audiences were eating up the movie in theaters. "They had a blast, cheered/laughed during scenes and applauded during the credits," Pajarillo wrote in a Twitter reaction, noting that people in the "wholesome crowd" were dressed in costume for the occasion. Filmmaker Scott Vasey noticed a similar response, explaining via Twitter that he took his youngest kid, who had never seen a horror movie in theaters but who was "absolutely down for it" to a preview screening of the movie. "Packed theater of fans. So much fun," Vasey wrote.
You can now see for yourself if you'd survive "Five Nights At Freddy's," as the movie is currently in theaters and streaming on Peacock.