“Five Nights at Freddy’s” directed by Emma Tammi  is  a horror movie inspired by the game series of the same name. Like the game, the story centers on Mike Schmidt, a security guard who’s trying to defend himself against animatronics who become mobile and hostile at night.  

At a young age, Mike lost his brother when he and his parents went for a family picnic. After his parents pass away, he is left to care for his little sister, Abby. One night Mike is forced to take his sister to his job, and that’s where things start getting a little crazy. The movie is rated PG-13.  

Mike Schmidt is played by Josh Hutcherston and Piper Rubio is Abby, Mike’s younger sister. Elizabeth Lail stars as Vanessa, a cop, while Matthew Lillard is Steven Raglan, the person that offers Mike the job. Both have  key roles in the movie; one is the antagonist and the other tries to help the main characters.

 Another character that appears for a short period of time is Mat Pat. Most of you might already have heard of him, but for those who don’t know him, Mat Pat is a YouTuber who makes theories about films, video games, fashion, etc.. His scene was the first scene they shot, despite it appearing like 30 minutes into the movie. Enough of me ranting about Mat Pat, let’s get into the two main characters whose roles actually impact the story. 

 Mike has some trauma from his childhood when he witnessed his little brother being kidnapped right in front of him. He listens to nature music whenever he goes to sleep because he wants to see if there’s anything in his dream/memory that might lead him to his brother’s kidnapper. As he keeps going over and over the dream, he notices five kids who are really important to the whole story and might even have something to do with Freddy and his friends.

Mike’s story was really interesting because he keeps  fighting between reality and his dreams. Abby is an interesting character when you first meet her. She doesn’t get scared very fast and finds comfort in her drawings more than anything besides her older brother. 

The lighting of the movie was very dark and dim which fits well since it’s a horror movie. The movie is darkest when Mike is at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. As far as horror level, I wasn’t too creeped out, but that’s probably because I wasn’t so scared of watching the movie as I was of potentially having nightmares afterwards. However, there wasn’t really anything too scary about the movie. Everyone knows that electronics aren’t real and that they don’t do anything too bad in real life, so why would they be scared when watching a movie about them? I also think the reason filmmakers didn’t add that much horror into the film was the fact that it was  PG-13. Every time something  brutal was about to happen, the screen just went black or the scene changed. 

As far as the bad reviews I’ve seen online, I don’t think the film is that bad. I just think people who’ve already seen the games, played them, and experienced the horror aren’t fulfilled with what the movie showed. I would probably recommend watching it with friends or  family. It’s definitely a good horror movie to see if you’re too scared of watching an actual horror movie. There’s nothing there aside from some minor jumpscares, so you’ll be fine. IMDB  scored the movie 5.6/10 while Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 27% on its Tomatometer.