[DISCUSSION] [SPOILERS] - FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S - Josh Hutcherson, Mary Stuart Masterson, Lucas Grant

I'm sure if you're super into the lore then this will be a great movie for you but man, it was so boring for me. The exposition ratio is way too high, it really could have used more animatronic screen time and action instead of the frequent dream sequences.

I think the opinions here are valid but I thoroughly enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would. It wasn't all that it could have been but I got into it and stayed interested and found it entertaining.

Spoilers if you don’t really know some basic but important FNAF lore.

The scream knife wipe Easter egg was fun, other than that, I was a bit disappointed overall. It felt like only two of the nights were scary, nights three and four were just thrown away. I was disappointed the most by the reveal of the suits being haunted by the kids, what could have been a scary reveal was a throw away scene where one character says “of course I know it’s this, duh” and they move on.

To start, I was never the biggest fan, and I fell off of the game theories and lore speculation around the time the third game came out. I already knew going in I wasn’t going to catch all the references or lore. That being said, I was expecting there to at least be a coherent, if simple, story.

Without getting into spoilers, I thought the movie was bad, mostly because of the final act. The film has a simple premise (which isn’t a bad thing), but still felt the need to throw curveballs with zero explanation. Several characters were frustratingly driven by nothing other than the urge to move the plot forward, only having motivation when the plot demands them to reveal it out of nowhere. The animatronics themselves had no unique characteristics or quirks to them (except Foxy, but only barely), and were all basically interchangeable. I thought the movie was maybe average, at least until the final act severely brought it down for me.

I think the film was fine, nothing too special. I don't really feel the urge to watch it again to see what I missed, though I will probably watch analysis videos made about it. Wish it was scarier, I enjoyed the part where they killed the invaders, even if it was a bit cheesy. Could have used more violence in that form, or at least some sense of dread while Mike was sleeping. I found myself not really caring if that makes sense.

Not a huge fan of the fort building scene either. Didn't really expect to see goofy animatronic construction simulator.

Overall, watch if you're a fan. Not really a horror film though.

So, I went into this film expecting a total B-movie cash grab that might have been too late in the works to be relevant. I can say that I was pleasantly surprised that they did put some actual effort into the production, which was great to see.

I didn't dislike the film, but I feel like there was more of a story they were trying to tell but it was getting pulled in a lot of directions all at one. The horror scenes with the animatronics really fought for screen time that was pretty heavy already with dialogue and exposition. I could see the potential for a really good film buried deep within though. I really wanted them to tease out more information about Garrett's kidnapper and possibly delve deeper into the idea that Mike was a substance abuser losing his grip on reality. He spent his waking hours suspecting random strangers of being child abductors and his resting hours in a pill-induced stupor obsessing over the same dream again and again. Would have been neat to explore that in relation to the events at Freddy's.

I saw Vanessa the cop as both a necessary supporting character to do exposition dumps, but also a pointless side character who never seemed to explain or justify the reason why she was in the scene, and Mike never questioned why she was there either. I actually thought that the plot twist at the end was going to be that Vanessa was the kidnapper and Mike couldn't see her for what she was despite his hypervigilance because he was blinded by his preconceived notions that Mike must have been kidnapped by a man, despite the kidnapper never explicitly being shown in the dream.

The acting at times wasn't spectacular, but passable. Maybe it was intentional that some people seemed to be "playing a role" given the reveal at the end? Josh Hutcherson and Piper Rubio did great in their roles, but everyone else came across as either phoning it in or just generally being too corny for the camera.

Overall, it was worth the watch, but don't expect it to scare your pants off. It's a pretty tame movie that fans of the game will definitely enjoy.