After eight years since the announcement of the adaption, fans are finally able to watch the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie.

The movie premiered theatrically on Oct. 27 and was available to stream on Peacock the same day.

WHAT IS FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S?

Directed by Emma Tammi and produced by Jason Blum, CEO of Blumhouse Productions, the movie is adapted from the popular video games series Five Nights at Freddy’s by Scott Cawthon, who also wrote and produced the film.

In the game, you play as a newly-hired security guard who must survive five nights as homicidal animatronic animals try to kill you. Confined to an office, you can use cameras, lights and doors to prevent the animatronics from coming in, but beware of the limited electrical supply or you’ll have no defense against them.

HOW FILM HOLDS UP COMPARED TO GAMES

The movie never knows whether it wants to be scary or funny, so it just throws a bunch of stuff at the audience and hopes it lands. It never does. Even the coolest kill where a character is fully bitten in half by an animatronic is lackluster and comes off boring more than anything.

One of the biggest downsides from the film is that it’s incredibly predictable. I went into the movie with a basic knowledge of the lore, but even so, with the way characters reacted to certain lines of dialogue and how they acted in general, it was easy to conclude some of the big reveals at the end. I’m a fan of foreshadowing – and this movie has a lot in it – but the foreshadowing ends up sticking out like a sore thumb instead of being subtle.

Josh Hutcherson stars as Mike Schmidt, a mall security guard who takes care of his little sister Abby (Piper Rubio) after the death of their parents. Mike is racked with guilt since childhood after witnessing the kidnapping of his little brother Garrett (Lucas Grant) but believes there’s a way he can solve the mystery of who took him. 

While working at the mall, Mike believes a child is getting kidnapped and ends up attacking the child’s father by mistake and loses his job. 

With limited options, Mike meets with Steve Raglan (Matthew Lillard), a career counselor, who offers him a job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. Initially reluctant, Mike accepts the job so he doesn’t lose custody of Abby to his aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson).

While on duty, Mike meets Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), a local police officer, who tells Mike about the five children who were murdered at the restaurant in the 1980s; their bodies were never discovered.

Jane, only wanting custody of Abby for the monthly government check, hires a group of delinquents to break into the pizzeria in order to get Mike fired. This is where viewers get their first look on what the animatronics can do. 

The delinquents vandalize the restaurant before the animatronic mascots of the restaurant – Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Foxy and Chica – come alive and pick them off one-by-one.

The animatronics were amazing to look at. Made by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, the special effects artists were able to recreate real animatronics identical to the ones in the game. 

Seeing the animatronics come to life gave me goosebumps. From the way Freddy looked to the way he interacted with his surroundings, I get why Abby wanted to be friends with him.

Hutcherson’s and Rubio’s performance is what sold this movie for me. The brother and sister dynamic between Mike and Abby was very well done. I have a brother with a significant age gap, so seeing their relationship on screen took me back to my childhood. It’s a small detail in the grand scheme of the movie, but in a film as chaotic as this, these details need to be appreciated.

This is definitely a movie for the fans. While the movie isn’t hard to understand, the problem is getting non-fans to care about the story; and if non-fans don’t care, they’ll perceive the film a little negatively. The best elements of the movie come directly from the game; and if you don’t know the game well, you aren’t able to appreciate those details.

If you’re expecting a good horror movie, you’re out of luck; but if you’re a part of the FNAF fandom, you already know you need to watch it.