‘Five Nights At Freddy’s’: Minus the menace

Blumhouse Productions’ latest, a sequel to their valuable IP, ‘Five Nights At Freddy’s’, is a cash grab at best. There’s not much that is ingenious or terrifying here.

‘FNAF’ is a survival horror game set in Freddy Fazbear’s, a cheese ’n’ pizza joint. As a player, you become a security guard working nights, while eerie animatronics creatures stalk you. You have to survive these to win. The movie is an adaptation of this Scott Cawthon video game series.

While ‘FNAF’ the film was not a great experience, it did manage to score well with fans of the game. This inevitable sequel is another matter though. The gaps (read deep chasms) in the storytelling are many and even the myth and lore it depends on aren’t strong enough to paper over them.

An introductory sequence brings us an update about the formidable animatronics Marionette from Freddy Fazbear’s, which apparently caused the death of a child, Charlotte (Audrey Lynn-Marie), way back in 1982. Cut to a year after the events of the first film and 20 years after Charlotte’s tragic death. Former security guard Mike (Josh Hutcherson), his younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio) and Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) are still dealing with the aftermath of the traumatic events caused by Vanessa’s serial killer father William (Matthew Lillard), the man who created the animatronics.

A ghost-hunting group of YouTubers, led by Lisa (Mckenna Grace), arrive at Fazbear’s and soon encounter animatronics Freddy (Kellen Goff), Chica (Megan Fox), Bonnie (Matthew Patrick) and Foxy, possessed by the spirit of the little girl.

The second half of this film takes place largely in the pizzeria — a location which fails to inspire terror or make any room for suspense. We see a large number of violent robots in action, but they just add to the numbers. They don’t have enough individuality to cause a scare.

A rather dull movie, it attempts to make its animatronics characters look menacing, but fails miserably. This is no ‘Chucky’ because there are way too many characters to focus on and none of them has a strong enough lore to seem scary.

The opening sequence and the ones that follow are rather limp and appear bloodless. Screenwriter Scott Cawthon’s attempt to widen the appeal only makes it all look timid and rather unappealing for a horror franchise. The writing goes to absurd lengths to keep it age-friendly.

Cawthon writes up a heavy scenario with multiple characters who barely leave their mark. The attempt here to pay homage to the source material while appealing to long-time fans of the game comes unstuck. The jump scares come and go without so much as a whimper from the audience. The loud background noises fail to strike terror either.

There’s no tension in this telling. The tempo is sluggish and the performances rather wraith-like. What transpires on screen is more laughable than horrifying.

This is one more addition to the long list of disappointing video game adaptations that flatter the game only to deceive the audience.