2023 Catch-Up: Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)

 After watching the knock-off, let's see the original.

Mind you, the 'original' is a Game Adaptation based on the idea that The Rock-afire Explosion was scary.

Are you ready to be scared by the robots of Freddy's?

Well, you don't see them in the Syfy Opening bit and you don't really see them in action until *checks watch* a while.

Instead, let's follow Josh Hutcherson and his...emotional trauma.

He's scarred by an experience when he was a kid, dreams of the moment constantly (that's healthy) and can't hold a job on account of his mania.

He gets hired to be the new Security Guard at Freddy's by Matthew Lillard.  Scooby?

Okay, so he's going to either turn out to be the Bad Guy, a 3rd Act Shock Death or Sequel Bait.
Everyone place your bets!

This Cop lady befriends him on the job.  Did they need to hire a lady who looked like Jennifer Lawrence for this BTW?

She's good, but it is a bit distracting.

After lots of drama involving child custody disputes (between the Aunt and Josh acting as the 'Dad' to his much younger Sister) and more dreams they thought of after watching Channel Zero: Candle Cove, we get some kill filler.

Will the animatronics please show up now?

Well, they do.  They can't do any killing on-screen per se (due to the PG-13 Raiting), but we do get the build-up to the ultimate evil.

Another Animatronic Creature!

Can anyone survive the 5th Night?

This is an odd one, to say the least.  I had zero expectations for this one.

For starters, the Plot is way more serious and darker than you might expect.  Maybe more the former than the latter.  Josh's Character is way more than Guy Who Watches Monitors.

That's good.  That said, the Plot revolves around everyone important to each other all living in a small town and constantly crossing paths.  I have next door neighbors that I have zero connection with, but these people are all intertwined!

There's an odd tonal confusion here.  Simply put, they can't show the major gore that you would expect.  That said, they can talk about some REALLY, REALLY dark stuff that they just don't show.  

Is that how this works?  You can make a PG-13 Film where the Plot has the villain cut out and eat our Hero's brother's heart, but, since we don't see it, it's all good?  

Oh right- that was Disney's The Lone Ranger.

The actual draw here- the Animatronics- look great.  They just need a Film that gives them far more to do, whether we see blood or not.

Just know that this is less about the Plot of those Games than you might hope.

I'll leave you with this random Behind the Scenes Photo that seems to silly to be real (but is)...

A Film that, for better or worse, tries to do way more than set up jump scares for Twitch Streamers.  It made a ton of money, so maybe it was the right call?