FNAF movie review: two perspectives

Owen Meyers, Reporter & Landen Pate, Reporter

!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!

For the past 9 years, FNAF (Five Nights at Freddy’s) has been a staple in the Horror gaming community. The game has made a name for itself with over 9 main series games, over 30 books, hundreds of fan games, and don’t get us started on the merchandise. Rumors of a movie have existed since the start of the franchise’s popularity, but after years of swapping studios, scripts, and actors the movie finally started production in early 2023 and was released on Oct 27, 2023. As of writing this the fans and critics are divided on how good the movie actually was, with the critics rating it a 25% on the Tomatometer®, making it certified rotten, and fans rating it an 89%. In this review, Landen Pate, a FNAF fan, and Owen Meyers, a critic, will debate about how good the movie actually is.

Costumes and animatronics

Landen: I think the animatronics turned out great! They looked like they came straight out of the games, and they showed emotion very well.

Owen: For me, I think the animatronics looked a little too cartoonish. I understand that they looked like that in the game, which I do appreciate, but for a movie that some people are expecting to be scary, I don’t think it was scary enough. Other than that, though, I think they were good. They stayed true to the game and looked good for what the movie was. 

Landen: While I can agree that the animatronics by themselves don’t look that scary when applied in the right scenarios, they can look absolutely terrifying.

Cameos

Owen: Although I didn’t catch many of the cameos, I really liked the CoryxKenshin one. I watched him on YouTube for many years as a child and loved to see him in a real movie. 

Landen: I loved every single cameo, the CoryxKenshin one was super cool, but there were more. First, there was an employee of the month wall with multiple YouTubers including Dawko, Baz, 8-BitRyan, Razzbowski, and DJ Sterf. One of the most exciting cameos in my opinion though was MatPat, from the theory channel Game Theory, he even said his famous catchphrase “It’s just a theory”.

Plot

Owen: As someone who doesn’t have much background on FNAF, there were parts of the movie that didn’t make much sense or didn’t have as much meaning to me. Like the scene where William Afton gets springlocked in the suit, he says “I always come back.” To a FNAF fan, this is iconic, but to me, it means nothing. 

Landen: You have a point, but producer Jason Blum said, “Five Nights at Freddy’s was made specifically for fans of the game, but invites everyone else to join in on the fun.” The movie has some weird moments like that because the movie was made for the fans first and the critics second.

In reality the FNAF movie isn’t supposed to be critically acclaimed or win any awards, it’s supposed to give the fans a movie that they will enjoy and cherish for years to come. Whether you like the movie or not, we can agree that it’s a fun movie that is special for fans.

And remember, together we are FNAF.