Blumhouse’s latest horror film follows a security guard tasked with guarding a long-closed family pizza restaurant whose giant animatronic animal figures come to life and go on murderous rampages.
And that is the most believable element of the story.
Five nights at Freddy’s
Conclusion: There are better places to spend the evenings.
Release date: Friday, October 27th
Pour: Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Mary Stuart Masterson, Matthew Lillard
director: Emma Tammi
Screenwriters: Scott Cawthon, Seth Cuddeback, Emma Tammi
Rated PG-13, 1 hour 50 minutes
Based on, what else, a hugely successful video game franchise, Five nights at Freddy’s, premiering simultaneously in theaters and on Peacock, never quite figures out what it wants to be. It seems to be aiming for cult status, but isn’t nearly transgressive enough to achieve it. It promises a gore-fest but keeps the violence sanitized enough to earn a PG-13 rating. And rather than further expanding on the kind of chaos that comes with the video game experience, it offers a tragic backstory that’s meant to add emotional depth but instead just slows the action down to a minimum. The end result is a nap.
A few years ago he was beaten by very similar films on the big screen Willy’s Wonderlandthat at least had the courage of its gonzo convictions, Freddy’s also suffers from a lack of real fears.
It’s refreshing that the killer animatronic characters – Freddy Fazbear, the restaurant’s bear mascot; Bonnie, a rabbit with a bow tie; Chica, a chicken wearing a bib that says “Let’s eat!”; and Foxy, a pirate fox with a metal hook – are not CGI-rendered images, but creations of the venerable Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.
Unfortunately, while these villains appear to be faithful replicas of the characters in the game, they are just as scary as the characters in Disney’s Hall of Presidents. (Actually, scratch that – some of these presidents are Away scarier.)
The hero of the story is Mike (Josh Hutcherson, still looking for that post-Hunger Games breakout role) who desperately needs work after losing his job as a mall security guard for knocking down a man he mistakenly believed had kidnapped a little boy. It was a mistake that resulted from a traumatic event at age 12 in which his younger brother was kidnapped by a male stranger and never seen again. To remember clues to the kidnapper’s identity, he forces himself to sleep every night to replay the scenario in his dreams. This leads to a lot of cinematic repetition as we are forced to watch the scene over and over again, with variations involving a group of ghostly children.
Stable employment is particularly important to Mike as he tries to maintain sole custody of his ten-year-old sister Abby (Piper Rubio, absolutely adorable) and prevent her from falling into the clutches of her Aunt Jane (amusing Mary Stuart Masterson). playing the guy), a woman so evil that she makes the Wicked Witch of the West look misunderstood. So he reluctantly accepts the only job offered to him by a sleazy career counselor (Matthew Lillard, returning to his). Scream Horror Movie Roots): He occupies the night shift at the eponymous establishment, which has remained unchanged since its ’80s heyday.
There he keeps running into Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), a local police officer who seems to have an excessive amount of time on her hands and for some reason shows an excessive interest in the goings-on at Freddy’s. Things get even worse when a group of locals hired by Aunt Jane break into Freddy’s while Mike is off duty to vandalize the store so that he loses his job. Needless to say, Freddy Fazbear and his colleagues don’t approve of the intrusion, with gruesome consequences.
We eventually learn the tragic secret that explains why the animatronic characters came to life, but the backstory is presented in such a painfully boring way (note: this is actually a ghost story) that we’ve long since stopped caring. And while no one really cares for verisimilitude in a movie about killer dolls, there are so many ridiculous plot lines that you desperately wish you were at home just playing the damn game.
On a side note, if you’ve ever been hopelessly addicted to the relentlessly catchy romantic song “Talking in Your Sleep,” this movie will definitely cure you.
Full credits
Production: Blumhouse, Scott Cawthon Productions, Universal Pictures
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Cast: Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Mary Stuart Masterson, Matthew Lillard
Director: Emma Tammi
Screenwriters: Scott Cawthon, Seth Cuddeback, Emma Tammi
Producers: Scott Cawthon, Jason Blum
Executive Producers: Beatriz Sequeira, Ryan Turek, Christopher H. Warner, Russell Binder, Marc Mostman
Cinematographer: Lyn Moncrief
Production Designer: Marc Fishichella
Costume designer: Natalie O’Brien
Editors: Andrew Wesmen, William Paley
Composers: The Newton Brothers
Cast: Terri Taylor, Sarah Domeier Lindo
Rated PG-13, 1 hour 50 minutes
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Source : www.hollywoodreporter.com