Rating: 4/5 stars

After nine years, Scott Cawthon, creator of the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” franchise, has finally released a long-awaited thriller movie featuring the original gang of singing animatronics and some familiar names across the games and books. Cawthon released “Five Nights at Freddy’s” in August 2014, and ever since then, the games have expanded to a massive universe of messed-up timelines, oddball characters and mysteries that left even the most dedicated fans puzzled. 

Starring Matthew Lillard (“Scream”), Josh Hutcherson (“Hunger Games”), Elizabeth Lail (“You”), Piper Rubio (“Unstable”) and Mary Stuart Masterson, (“Fried Green Tomatoes”) the plot follows Mike Schmidt, a young man who was left to care for his younger sister, Abby, following the death of their parents. Facing a custody battle over his sister against Aunt Jane and desperate for work, Mike accepts the offer of a nighttime security guard position at “Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Place.” Inside, he discovers that the long-forgotten and possessed animatronics now run the ‘80s family-style pizzeria and kill any who dares step inside uninvited. As pieces of Mike’s childhood begin to align in odd ways with the pizzeria, Mike must uncover the horrors of Freddy’s alongside a police officer, Vanessa (Lail) to discover the man behind the slaughter. 

If you’re a die-hard FNAF fan like myself, it’s easy to recognize that Cawthon based this movie on his 2015 book “The Silver Eyes” with only a few minor tweaks to make different pieces fit together better. That being said, the movie by itself stood up well, debuting at $79 million during its opening weekend and being named the best opening weekend for a horror film in 2023. Despite this one movie being a highly-anticipated film, it is only going to make more and more sense once the confirmed second and third movies are released–confirmed by Lillard–and everything across the storylines is explained. Despite Cawthon being notorious for not knowing how to story-build, he subtly answers a lot of previously unanswered questions that track to even the first game such as why the kitchen camera is broken. 

To give credit where credit is due, the team of scriptwriters did a fine job at bringing viewers to ease with light comedy, only to immediately fill them with terror as a robotic cupcake eats a man’s face, which is not a tactic that is considered with most horror movies. This is a recurring theme in other Blumhouse productions, such as “M3GAN” and “Insidious,” and gives the company a key signature that is seen in all production companies across the world. Blumhouse’s knack for including easter eggs–which really are what make up the entire “Five Nights at Freddy’s” storyline–are also scattered throughout: the “Dream Theory” book, the “IT’S ME” song and even a minor character’s T-shirt opens up a lot for interpretation and hints as to what could be coming in the following movies. 

There is no correct or incorrect way to predict what will be coming next, but more than likely we will see Scott Cawthon referencing the other two books of the trilogy, “The Twisted Ones” (2017) and “The Fourth Closet” (2018) to tie everything together. To a lot of critics, the movie was targeted at a niche subgroup of fans who were very invested in the plot. To those niche, subgrouped fans; this is only the beginning.

Image from @FNAFMovie via twitter.com