Five Nights at Freddy’s

Chuck E. Cheese was invented in my youth. Apparently, no one before had thought to have a family restaurant completely devoid of taste in any form. Seriously, this was the first restaurant I’d ever heard of that catered completely to small children – or, at least, what it thought of them. From a parent’s POV, this madhouse of neon, animatronics, games, and “food” was innovative, yet still another human engineered swamp where you could lose your child within thirty seconds upon entry.  On the positive side, however, they weren’t likely to leave the place. And, there was the added bonus of being able to hide vomit in a ball pit.

Speaking of vomit hidden in a ball pit, Five Nights at Freddy’s came out this weekend in both theaters and on a streaming service (Peacock), a guaranteed sign of post-COVID film quality. Five Nights tells the story of Freddy’s, a place that was not unlike Chuck E. Cheese where children thrived for an evening while their parents downed bad pizza and Excedrin by the bucketful. Now, the place is abandoned and forgotten, but not quite empty for it still contains the colorful, noisy trappings of a once proud entertainment center and a special feature to boot: playful and sometimes vengeful ghost children live inside members of the restaurant’s animatronic band.

Oh, and they still work! This, to me, was the biggest revelation of the film. Ghost children contained within anthropomorphic animals? Yeah, I can see that. Animatronics that still manage to work years after their last service date? Uh uh. No way. Now this has become sci-fi/fantasy.

Mike (Josh Hutcherson) kinda sucks at life. Since Katniss left, Peeta just ain’t been right. It takes him less than one ice cream to get fired as a mall cop. Now, he’s down to bad job/bad pay AND bad hours, which he cannot do because he’s sole provider for his little sister, Abby (Piper Rubio) – the most lovable basket case ever. Mike’s problem is not actually with his sister, but with his brother, who was abducted (and presumably murdered) as a kid years and years ago. Mike still dreams about him every night hoping to correct or avenge as the case may be. Meanwhile, in a storyline that gets added and dropped as the movie requires, Mike’s Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson !!) is trying to claim Abby. So Mike has to take a night guardsman job at an abandoned family restaurant.

If that doesn’t make any sense, you’ll love the part where there is no day shift. What exactly is the point of guarding a defunct restaurant? Not sure, but if you’re determined to do so, why not guard it when people are awake?

Of course, Five Days at Freddy’s might not have the same appeal. And that appeal is animatronic entities who may or may not be friendly based on subject matter and focus. The film made the animatronic players LARGE to compensate for the fact that they just aren’t all that scary. You can scream all you want, but the one-eyed giant teddy bear lip-synching to The Romantics “Talking in Your Sleep” is just never going to trigger my flight-or-fight. So they made four (4) huge and mildly threatening mechanical beasts to compensate. Oh, and a sentient bowling-ball-shaped cupcake with eyes. The acting in this film is magnificent. There is no point at which I would stop laughing over being attacked by a plastic cupcake.

Hey man, three hundred more bites and it might just draw blood.

Five Nights at Freddy’s has a distinct “Scooby Doo” feel to it, where the villains seem like folksy people in stupid costumes. This feeling is only aided by the appearance of Matthew Lillard, who may or may not have found work since Scooby-Doo. I have no idea. Bottom line: This is a colorful film and an imaginative one. But it’s also bad. And tame … which is about the worst thing one can ever say about a horror film. I didn’t hate it, but there sure isn’t a good reason to see it.

There once was a bear named Freddy
Who found his employment unsteady
Now he haunts his old gig
And he don’t give a fig
If you’ve had a hard time already

Rated PG-13, 109 Minutes
Director: Emma Tammi
Writer: Scott Cawthon, Seth Cuddeback, Emma Tammi
Genre: Are you sure this is scary?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: A child’s introduction to horror, perhaps?
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “Could you at least get a scary clown in there or something?”