In 2014, Scott Cawthon released “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” a game whose concept emerged after fierce negative reviews of his previous game, “Chipper & Sons Lumber Co.” Unlike “Chipper & Sons Lumber Co.,” Cawthon set out to develop a game that is intentionally scary — with a premise involving homicidal animatronics. 

A plethora of YouTubers, specifically those from the Let’s Play community (such as Markiplier), promoted the game and brought it popularity. This spawned a franchise that has included multiple sequels and even a series of bestselling novels. The franchise has also seemingly influenced films, including 2019’s “The Banana Splits Movie” and 2021’s “Willy’s Wonderland,” the latter starring Nicolas Cage.

After several years of development, Blumhouse Productions made an adaptation of the game. While they’re the studio behind contemporary masterpieces of genre cinema, such as Jordan Peele’s groundbreaking directorial debut, “Get Out,” and fun features, such as the comedic slasher “Happy Death Day,” Blumhouse has also had several misfires. Unfortunately, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is one of those misfires.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s” takes place in the year 2000 and focuses on Mike, a struggling man who is the caretaker of his younger sister, Abby. Mike is also haunted by the disappearance of his brother Garrett, who was abducted when he was a child. After being fired from his last job as a mall security guard, Mike is offered the position as the night security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a once-popular pizza restaurant (similar to that of Chuck E. Cheese) that was shut down many years ago. Unbeknownst to him, the animatronics are sentient and are out for blood.

Photo of the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza sign. (Contributed/wegotthiscovered.com)

Josh Hutcherson’s performance as Mike is emotionless and distant, with most of his dialogue delivered in a somewhat exhausted tone. As a result, it is an incredibly bland performance. 

Elizabeth Lail is pretty good as Vanessa Shelly, a local officer whom Mike first encounters on his second night. Her best scene is when she angrily confronts Mike about bringing Abby to the resturant in the film’s second act. 

The screenplay is the biggest issue that I have with the film. Co-written by Scott Cawthon, Emma Tammi (the film’s director) and Seth Cuddeback, this is one of the strangest storylines the adaptation could’ve gone with. This is evident in the film’s first half, which is quite awful, considering one of the overarching plotlines revolves around a custody battle between Mike and his aunt Jane over Abby. This storyline feels like padding to reach a desirable runtime and seems out of place in a movie about murderous animatronics. 

The film’s best aspect is Matthew Lillard’s performance as Steve Raglan, a career counselor who offers Mike the position of night security guard. Although Lillard performs excellently as this character, his short screen time makes him feel underutilized. 

While “Five Nights at Freddy’s” isn’t the worst film I’ve seen this year, it isn’t the best either. The film is lacking in several aspects, including a bland leading performance, a downright perplexing storyline and violence and scares that feel too sanitized compared to the games. Surviving “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is possible, but the experience will be tedious and confusing.