This loveable and terrifying video game finally hit the big screen over the weekend with Five Nights at Freddy’s.

The main protagonist of the film is Mike (Josh Hutcherson) has been trying to stay above water by supporting his younger sister Abbey (Piper Rubio) as her guardian. It’s been somewhat difficult for him to keep a job due to unresolved trauma from when his younger brother was kidnapped on a camping trip. While dealing with that his unflattering aunt has been trying to take custody of Abbey. With all this pent-up stress and aggression Mike loses another job forcing him to head to a career service center. Career Counselor, Steve Raglan (Matthew Lillard), offers Mike the opportunity to be the night security guard at a once popular kids pizza place, which turns out to be Freddy Fazzbears Pizzeria. The store closed back in the 80’s due to the disappearances of several children and since then new security guards have been hired to keep the public out. To help Mike make sure the public is safe from Freddy’s is police officer Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail). The only question Mike has is “Why are they trying to keep the public out?” Well, that answer might lie within the ominous animatronic characters that have never been removed from the establishment. While Mike gets to learn more about Freddy, Foxy, Bonnie, and Chica he’ll also get closer to the truth about what happened to his younger brother all those years ago. The only thing he’ll have to do is survive the night.

Talk about an interesting premise for a film that deals with killer animatronics. I thought that the story was going to delve deeper into the pizzeria lore, but instead it was solely focused on Mike. I didn’t think it was a bad idea to go in that direction but by doing so it took a lot of air out of the horror aspect of the film. Never once was I on the edge of my seat, had an increased heart rate, or had to shield my eyes due to the suspense factor of the film. This was more about dealing with trauma and how to get past it while dealing with killer animatronics in the background. Now, the animatronics were cool looking, but not scary. I think the producers for this film had many different ideas about what they wanted and kind of blended it all together and got this film. I thought the acting was fine and the production value was fantastic, but I just needed more horror for such an extremely popular horror video game.

If you want to see this film do not waste your hard-earned cash on it. Try to watch it on Peacock if you have that streaming service or wait until it is free to watch. Plus, if you are looking for a good scare this is not the film to watch.

Rating: 2 out of 5