Who would have thought a game created by one man after critics called his characters “scary animatronics,” who would have thought Scott Cawthon’s game-turned-film would end up having the biggest horror opening of 2023 globally? The Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) movie was released on October 27 after an 8-year-long development.
“If I had to rate the pain of the wait from 1-10, it was 11. It took long enough to be an 11,” said Ivan Alvarez, Senior.
The film was released to fans’ acclaim receiving an 88% percent review from verified audience on Rotton tomatoes. The film didn’t sit well with critics, however, who gave it a lackluster score of 29 percent on Rotton tomatoes.
Despite the negative response from critics, the movie blew up at the box office, becoming the second highest grossing horror opening of the year after “The Nun II” internationally and the biggest horror opening of 2023 ahead of “The Nun II” globally, as stated in the article “Five Nights at Freddy’s Box Office: All the Records Shattered in Opening Weekend” by Rebecca Rubin.
A lot of fans were upset by the movie’s PG 13 rating, as they were hoping for a more violent movie. The casual audience also held their doubts due to it being a movie based on a video game. The “Super Mario Bros Movie” had recently come out and it was generally received as underwhelming. A comparable situation hit the movie “Uncharted.”
“It’s a movie about a game and those are usually bad – like the movie ‘Uncharted,’” said Mahdi Islam, senior.
The development of the film began after the 3rd game was released on March 2nd, 2015. It was announced in the article “Video Game ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ Getting Movie Treatment (Exclusive)” by Borys Kit that Warner Brothers had picked up the rights to the Franchise to produce a movie in April 2015. The movie was to be produced by Roy Lee, David Katzenberg, and Seth Grahame-Smith with Scott Cawthon – the creator of FNAF – overseeing Its development.
During production, the movie was swapped from Warner Brothers to Blumhouse, and its director changed from Chris Columbus to Emma Tammi. During this period multiple scripts were written and even went into production, but Cawthon changed them due to new visions for the movie.
The FNAF game was first released on August 8, 2014. The player takes on the role of a nightguard at the family restaurant Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The restaurant is inspired by restaurants like Chucky Cheese with its own animatronic mascots. However, unlike the real-life restaurant, this animatronics come to life at night.
The game play is simple – the player sits in an office with two entrances to your office from the left and right hallways, each of these entrances have two buttons on to turn on the lights and one to close the doors. Players are also equipped with a security camera to monitor the building and be shocked when the seemingly harmless animatronics begin moving towards them.
“I’ve been a fan of Five Nights at Freddy’s since 2016,” said Cynthia Torres, Senior.
Players are tasked with making sure none of the animatronics enter their office by closing the doors on them. Otherwise, the player will be attacked with a loud scream and subsequently get the game over.
However, the doors and use of the cameras each lower the power the player has, if players lose all their power the building will go dark before the titular Freddy Fazbear appears and attacks the player. The goal is to survive from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. for five nights of increasing difficulty.
The game was an almost instant success, receiving massive coverage from YouTube such as Markiplier who credited the game in the title of his video as the “SCARIEST GAME IN YEARS.”
“I found out about the game in the 4th grade thanks to Markiplier,” said Alavarez.
Cawthon quickly developed a sequel game, known as Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, which was released on November 11 of the same year. This sequel aided in the popularity of the series, and they were considered instant classics thanks to their interesting story and gameplay.
“My favorite parts are the story and the lore,” Torres said.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 was released on March 2nd, 2015, as the finale to the trilogy of games. During the “Happiest Day” minigame Fans saw the children possessing the animatronics let their souls go free after years of agony. Fans of the Five Nights at Freddys game franchise can now celebrate their own “Happiest Day” by seeing the film in theaters.
