I never played the Five Nights at Freddy’s video game, so it’s possible that some of the nuances of the FNaF feature film went right over my head. Still, I can’t imagine this monotonous mess appealing to anyone. No amount of Easter eggs and inside jokes can make up for poor pacing, nonsensical narrative, and dull dialogue.
Five Nights struggles with tempo and tension, and partway through abandons any attempt at coherence. It feels like the creators couldn’t decide whether they were making a horror movie with funny elements, or a funny kids’ movie with scary overtones. Five Nights swerves, or rather plods, from sinister into cartoonish goofiness, until you’re no longer sure what you’re watching. Scenes that ought to be introspective are merely tedious, overplayed references to childhood trauma fizzle out to narrative dead-ends, and the tonal inconsistency makes it hard to take the (supposedly) scary parts seriously. The animatronic assassins are visually appealing, but they move at the same glacial, jerky pace as the film overall, and it’s difficult to visualize them actually killing someone. At a runtime of almost two hours, the plot is convoluted and unsatisfying, and could have been pared down significantly without sacrificing any appeal. A wonderfully manic Matthew Lillard is the only bright light in this dreary slog.
Absurdity can work in a horror setting. A slasher movie about murderous robot animals on a rampage could have been campy, or hilariously gory, or fast-paced and violent – or any combination of the three. Five Nights is long and boring. That’s about all it is.
Darker Realities 