Movie critic Bruce Miller says "Five Nights at Freddy's" is like something you’d find on Nickelodeon over Halloween weekend. It isn't a chilling gore fest. It tests the nerves but it doesn’t fry the brain.
Chuck E. Cheese animatronics have always been a little creepy, right? So the idea that they come to life in an abandoned restaurant just makes sense.
In “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” a troubled guy (Josh Hutcherson) takes the job as guard at a pizza restaurant and discovers Freddy and the gang have a life of their own.
Or do they? As the PG-13 horror film haltingly moves along, we discover there isn’t that much mechanically to scare. The larger-than-life robots move slowly and, frankly, don’t seem as unnerving as the detritus that’s left on the restaurant’s floor.
Why someone didn’t gut the place after it closed (kids went missing, apparently) is the first question the eager guard should have asked. Instead, he takes the job and gets little jumps here and there while trying to stay awake.
Based on a video game, “Freddy’s” suggests it isn't a torture chamber (like the ones created in “Saw”) but just a bad attraction with poor lighting. Those things that go bump in the night would go bump even if a guard wasn’t there. Hutcherson brings the nervousness (and has the pills to prove it) and the backstory – his brother went missing years earlier.
When a cop (Elizabeth Lail) comes by, he learns the truth about Freddy’s and begins to wonder if it isn’t the Halloween haunt others make it out to be.
When his sister stays with him at the place, “Freddy’s” heats up, but never gets above a simmer.
Even an evil (think Cruella de Vil evil) sister (played by Mary Stuart Masterson) doesn’t have the goods to make this more than October fare on Nickelodeon.
Written and directed by Emma Tammi, “Freddy’s” needs some real fright night stuff to get it started. News footage, for example, might have upped the creep factor and given Hutcherson pause about taking the job.
Instead, the film plods along until you begin to question the presence of people who just magically appear. Could they be trying to make the poor guard think he’s crazy? Or are they sent by the career counselor (Matthew Lillard) to check up on the guy’s poor work habits?
Tammi tries to play tricks with lighting but much of this could have been enhanced with a few views of more chilling films.
“The Conjuring,” for example, might have been a good starting place. “Psycho’s” use of music and editing would have been a great second. Instead, “Five Night’s at Freddy’s” looks like a visit to “Chucky” before he became possessed: “Chucky Cheese.”
Hutcherson is fine in the role, but he never looks at options or the source of his problems. “Megan” travelled a similar path earlier this year and came away with a franchise. This looks like it’s one-and-done.
The problem could hinge on the film’s rating. An R might have opened the door to more malevolence. A PG-13 simply makes the lights flicker.
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