Five Nights at Freddy’s Animatronics Steal the Show

If you’ve always wanted to see more of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, your time has arrived: Five Nights at Freddy’s will soon be both in theaters and streaming on Peacock, offering an entertaining if imperfect expansion on the popular Five Nights at Freddy’s video game franchise.

The film follows Mike (Hunger Games alum Josh Hutcherson), a down-on-his-luck security guard dealing with past trauma who needs a job in order to remain his little sister’s primary guardian, against his dubious aunt’s wishes. He takes a night watchman gig at a run-down children’s pizza entertainment center—a certain Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza—despite its history of children going missing when it was in operation.

Director Emma Tammi expands the FNAF world with a story that brings in elements from the game fans are familiar with. There’s the slow burn of the security cameras and the “did they just move?” suspense when the iconic animatronics are introduced. Brought to life by the talented team at the Jim Henson creature shop, the puppets for Freddy, Chica, Bonnie, Carl the Cupcake, and Foxy make the movie. In one moment, they’re welcoming and you want to hug them—but in the next, they’re fantastically frightening. Any time they’re on screen is a wonder and a triumph in practical effects, and they really bring out the best of why the terrors of FNAF work so well. It’s just a shame that it gets lost in the muddled side-plot involving Mike’s past, which involves a lot of flashbacks away from the action inside Freddy’s.

As Mike realizes something’s up with the animatronics, his job is on the line as he tries to keep the place secure after a mysterious accident; he also needs to protect his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) from his aunt, who has ulterior motives. With the help of local cop Vanessa (You’s Elizabeth Lail), he begins to see how Freddy and friends hope to relive their glory days. You’ve never seen the game come to life like this—each action sequence with the animatronics is twisted fun, even though the movie’s PG-13 rating keeps the terror in check. I wish it was just a tad more intense and made the effort to show the horrors more, even without the blood if need be.

As mentioned, a bit of the build from the games gets lost thanks to Mike’s subplot—again: too many flashbacks!—which gets dwelled on too much. Hutcherson and Rubio are standouts as siblings dealing with the horrors of the system, and their performances are enough without Five Nights at Freddy’s ham-handedly trying to tie more unnecessary plot threads together. The result is unfortunately lots of time spent elsewhere, rather than focusing on Freddy’s and pressing mysteries—like why the animatronics are so active all of a sudden! There’s great scenes with Chica (with Carl the Cupcake, who is everything) and Bonnie that felt too short as they did naughty scary things. The moments that the animatronics were holding it down really amplified the horror; that’s what fans and new audiences want to see, and there wasn’t enough of it. We also didn’t get enough of Matthew Lillard as Mike’s career counselor, but everytime he’s on screen, he gives a fantastic, scene-chewing performance.

Overall, the film needed more of the tension the video game series is known for, not to mention their arcade-fun terror, but it still serves as a solid Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise opener to set up those two additional films Blumhouse is planning on. See it for the game Easter eggs—and truly, the animatronics rock without needing crazy VFX. There’s lots of heart in the film and once the last act hits, things really get going in ways that made us excited for the crazy world of FNAF to continue on the big screen.

Five Nights at Freddy’s opens October 27 in theaters and streams on Peacock the same day.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.