When it comes to prior knowledge of the subject matter before seeing a movie, it is all situational.
Case in point, I have yet to play any of the Five Night at Freddy’s games (or “FNAF” as I know it to be called), but I knew just enough about it in a sense going in thanks to the trailer and the expert of the games going with me named Sean, a friend’s son.
In the film adaptation of the game, the story centers around Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson), in deseparate need of a job as he is the lone caretaker of his somewhat troubled little sister Abby (a nice little actor named Piper Rubio). After getting some advice and one last chance at a rather deadbeat job from a career counselor (Matthew Lillard, one of the most “sus” actors to get career advice from), his newest gig is at a rundown closed play place called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, basically a version of Chuck E’ Cheese (which I found out from Sean had a incident once that inspired the games.) It is not ideal, but it keeps his sister from the custody of his estranged Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson).
On his first shift or so, he is encountered by the attractive new cop on the beat, Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), letting her know the tragic backstory of Freddy’s from the eighties (this is in the trailer I believe): five kids went missing, never to be found again. It was rumored their souls still haunt the abandoned play place. What’s more, there are five kids now haunting Mike’s dreams…
As is the case with any adaptation, some added material is needed for certain characters. In the case of Mike, he has a childhood event that has haunted him for years (this happened before Abby was born), and he has never been able to let go of it even after his parents were out of the picture. One of the faults of the film (and there are a good amount) is that it spends too much time on this, making it rather predictable to see where it leads as the film progresses.
I did feel rather okay with the acting (aside from Mary Stuart Masterson, who, while talented, is asked to play a disney villain on steroids: we even have her lawyer basically being afraid to be around her.) There was one child actor in particular I was rather impressed with, and that was Grant Feely as one of the five children (in this case, the blond one.) He is someone to potentially watch out for in years to come.
Parents, the film is a pretty solid PG-13 for it’s scares (I admit the appearance of a toy clown got me once or twice). There is at least one (rather quick) instance where a character is decapitated, but the results are not entirely seen. There is no sexual content, but some swearing. Middle School and up would be fine.
I grew up in a time when cinematic adaptations of video games were mostly garbage (after this film, I had to explain to Sean there was once a time we had a live action Mario Brothers movie). The last few years have actually turned out a few decent flicks: Pokemon Detective Pikachu, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mortal Kombat, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Granted, I was a fan of sorts for each of those video games, but the movies did manage to be more than just fan service. Five Nights at Freddy’s is definitely fan service (Sean and the other young people in the crowd seemed delighted by the results), but not much more other than too many narrative banalities.
At least they got the “five nights” part right.
Overall:
Nothing else to say 