Five Nights At Freddy's Is A Better Halloween Horror Nights Maze Than A Movie
Anyone who knows anything about the "Five Nights at Freddy's fandom won't be surprised to learn that the franchise's maze at Halloween Horror Nights 34 commanded the longest waits on the popular seasonal event's opening night. What was once a tiny horror video game made chiefly by one designer has sprawled into a massive multimedia franchise with a deep lore, numerous sequels, tie-in novels, piles of merchandise, a blockbuster film adaption, and now, inevitably, a walkthrough maze at Universal Orlando Resort's premier annual horror celebration.
Fans filling the queue will undoubtedly be pleased with the results: this is a faithful recreation of what they love, letting them come face-to-face with the haunted killer animatronics that inhabit the decrepit Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. The vibes are right. The animatronic characters themselves — built as giant puppets in collaboration with the Jim Henson Creature Shop — are faithful. The little details are all present and accounted for.
However, one thought pokes at my grey matter as I think back on the "Five Nights at Freddy's" Halloween Horror Nights maze. In a peculiar way, a lavish theme park haunted house isn't just an inevitability for something as popular as this. It may actually be the ideal adaptation format for these characters and their world, even more than the movie. Lots of horror franchises can make for a good or great haunted maze. But for "Five Nights at Freddy's," it feels like destiny. It's in the core DNA.
Five Nights at Freddy's Halloween Horror Nights maze captures the feeling of a great horror game
This is the part where I admit that I'm not a "Five Nights at Freddy" fan. To be clear, I'm not a non-fan by any means. I like the movie just fine, and played around with a handful of the games over the years, but never committed to it and have to rely on a few friends and colleagues to keep me up to date on the increasingly complex lore surrounding these characters and their world. I make this observation from a dispassionate distance, purely as a horror fan and an admirer of a well-done haunted maze attraction (and Universal's Halloween Horror Nights creatives have indeed delivered just that here). So, to put it bluntly and in my inexpert opinion: "Five Nights at Freddy's" has achieved its ultimate and final form at Halloween Horror Nights.
I think back to my limited time spent with the original video games, point and click horror experiences built around a very simple loop. You're alone in the haunted pizzeria. The animatronics are alive and they mean you harm. They move slowly. They're hunting you. The tension is unbearable as they get closer and closer and closer and closer, with you using every resource at hand to keep them at bay. And just when the dreadful stillness of it all grows unbearable, you make one simple mistake, make one wrong move, and a massive jump scare sends you out of your seat.
Granted, a walkthrough Halloween maze isn't identical to a game, but there's enough overlap. You may be walking on a path, but there's still the illusion of choice and exploration. You made the call to enter this house, and you make every call to keep moving forward. And as you move forward, the tension builds and builds, only to be released when a scare is triggered. And then the tension resets until it's broken once again. "Five Nights at Freddy's" originated as a horror game boiled down to its fundamentals, and its haunted maze attraction, by the very nature of all haunted maze attractions, captures that same essence. The same satisfying push and pull that made the franchise a viral sensation is the cornerstone of every single attraction at every Halloween Horror Nights. It's the ideal match of theme and canvas.
Halloween Horror Nights has found the ultimate final form of Five Nights at Freddy's
This doesn't mean the "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie is unnecessary. Not at all. But I do think the walkthrough maze version distills the game's allure in a way that a film, which must follow a particular structure and hit specific emotional beats, cannot. In a video game, you bring your own personal emotional beats to the table and react to each scare with a personal honesty. The same is true of a haunted house attraction.
In a roundabout way, Halloween Horror Nights 34's "Five Nights at Freddy's House," despite not being my personal favorite of this year's line-up simply because my personal tastes align elsewhere, stands as the perfect argument for the merits of the entire endeavor. Nowhere is there stronger evidence of haunted attraction design as a true and proper art form than here. Here's all the evidence needed that a designed space full of actors and special effects primed to leap out of the darkness can carry the same qualities of a popular video game series, tapping into the source material's core experience with a directness that reveals a few surprising and specific limitations of cinema. There are some things a haunted house can just do ... better than the movies.
I'd argue there are more sophisticated mazes at Halloween Horror Nights 34, but none speak as loudly and as clearly that this is a medium that matters, and one whose ambitions and qualities will never stop evolving or surprising horror fans of all tastes. As a walkthrough maze, "Five Nights at Freddy's" has achieved its final, ultimate form.
(Editorial note: /Film experienced Halloween Horror Nights 34 as invited guests of the Universal Orlando Resort as part of a media event.)