The beloved video game franchise with the animatronics that come alive has finally been adapted to screen after a lot of delays and cancellations. Starring childhood superstar Josh Hutcherson, Five Nights At Freddy’s takes this seemingly simple yet melancholic backstory of the games and makes it into something much more complicated (to the disappointment of many). Read our review to know if it’s worth a watch. Even though it has a 2-hour run time, it feels like not much happened. Instead of just being a joy ride like everyone expected, the story is rather depressing and goes places nobody expected. Overall, Five Nights At Freddy’s leaves you wanting more but, at the same time, is a way for kids to get into the horror genre, similar to the games themselves. Mike’s story begins when he is looking for a new job after being fired for assaulting a father, whom he thought was kidnapping his own child. Unfortunately for him, his work record isn’t too great, and it’s become really hard to find a job. At the same time, he is responsible for his little sister after the death of their mother.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In The Film?
Mike meets a career counselor who gives him the job of a night guard at an abandoned pizzeria. Mike’s aunt is keen on adopting his sister Abby, so Mike reluctantly takes the job to look good on paper for Abby’s sake. Abby makes it extra clear that she likes him much more than his aunt and would prefer to live with him. Although Mike doesn’t really see how much she likes to be with him because she spends most of her time drawing pictures (mostly of him), Mike is also dealing with the past trauma of watching his younger brother Garrett get kidnapped when he was about 12. Every night, he goes back to this memory in his dreams to figure out the smallest detail that will lead him to the kidnapper all these years later. He takes sleeping pills to enhance his experience and make sure he can go back to that memory. With the new job on hand, Mike shouldn’t be sleeping because his only job is to keep people out of the pizzeria at night. His first night at Freddy Fazzbear’s Pizzeria is uneventful, and he returns home to rest. But his aunt is plotting something big. The babysitter Mike hired happens to be in cahoots with the aunt, giving her information that would cause the court to rule against Mike in exchange for money. It turns out there’s nothing much to say about Mike, so the babysitter’s brother comes up with the idea to trash Freddy’s and get Mike in trouble at the job.
At night, a police officer named Vanessa shows up at the pizzeria and gives Mike a tour of the pizzeria. It’s a bit strange how much she knows about the place, but she claims it’s because it was her favorite place as a child. The next day, the babysitter and her brother show up at Freddy’s, but they never return. It turns out the animatronics are not just any old robots; they’re killer machines. Before they died, though, the babysitter’s gang (of 4) trashed the place before getting “trashed” themselves, so Vanessa shows up at Mike’s doorstep. She shows him his sleeping pills and demands answers. Mike tells her the truth about his brother, and strangely, she understands and doesn’t report him. At night, because the babysitter isn’t responding (you know she’s dead and all), Mike has no choice but to take Abby to work with him. After Abby falls asleep, despite Vanessa’s warning, Mike falls asleep and dreams. Ever since Mike’s been working at Freddy’s, he’s been seeing new faces in his dreams. Specifically, four children run away from him as he tries to talk to them. Vanessa had told him earlier that a few children had gone missing back in the 80s, and he realizes now that the kids in the dream are those kids.
Mike asks one of the boys if he can help him with details about Garrett’s kidnapper. The boy says he must give them something in return, and Mike says he’ll do anything. Mike awakes and realizes Abby is missing. She’s playing with the animatronics, and this is the first time Mike’s seen them “come alive”. Vanessa shows up too, and the three of them have a great time with the animatronics and their musical show until it’s time to leave. Vanessa gives Mike a cryptic message, basically telling him to quit the job soon and not get too curious.
Abby tries to strum the strings of the guitar on one of the animatronics and ends up getting electrocuted. Mike realizes he’s put his sister in danger and immediately makes the decision to hand her over to her aunt (that was way too fast). His aunt takes care of Abby for the rest of the day, and Mike returns to work at night. In the dream, instead of helping him find the kidnappers, the kids show him a world where Garrett is still alive. Feeling emotional, Mike ends up saying yes when the kids ask him to hand over Abby in return for this perfect ending. Mike realizes too late what he’s said and tries to say no. When he wakes up, he’s in a room filled with the dead teens (the babysitter’s group) and is about to kill himself. He manages to escape by the skin of his teeth. Back at home, Freddy shows up to take Abby back to the pizzeria and convert her into one of them. He kills their aunt before taking her, but he tells Abby that she’s only fallen asleep on the floor.
What Happens To Vanessa?
Freddy and his gang want to make Abby one of them. It turns out that Vanessa’s father was the kidnapper all those years ago. He is also the person who killed all the missing kids all those years ago and put their bodies in the animatronics because nobody would think to check there. Vanessa is a police officer who knows all of this and hasn’t done anything all these years. Yikes. Now Abby’s in danger, and Mike needs to save her, but Vanessa leaves him alone with the task even though she owes him. Vanessa knew ever since Mike told her about Garrett that it was her dad who kidnapped him. Additionally, she knew Abby was in grave danger but only gave Mike cryptic messages rather than telling him to stop working there immediately. Mike has finally realized that he should be more in the moment rather than stuck in the past, thinking about his dead brother instead of his very alive sister. Remember that career counselor at the beginning of Five Nights At Freddy’s? Yeah, he’s the dad (a very “Stu” move, if you ask us). After a big cat and mouse chase with the bear and Mike and Abby, the dad shows up. He’s been controlling the kids mentally after killing them, which is why they don’t remember that he’s the one who killed them all those years ago. Mike asks Abby to show them the truth through her drawings.
Vanessa shows up and finally faces off against her father (it was high time, girl!). She points her gun at him, but he’s too strong, choking her and then stabbing her in the stomach (calm down, Stu). Just when they feel defeated, the ghost kids finally see the truth through Abby’s drawings and turn against their boss. The boss’s animatronic starts malfunctioning after one of the animatronics makes a deep cut in his suit. Ultimately, he’s locked up in the pizzeria by the kids, but he claims he will return (considering this is Blumhouse, we should expect a sequel). Mike and Abby can finally work on their relationship despite their aunt being dead, thanks to Freddy and all. Abby makes huge social progress now that she’s not talking to ghosts anymore. Vanessa is in intensive care, and Mike visits her to thank her for what she did. He tells her that Abby and he would like to see her well again.
Mid-Credit Scene
The mid-credit scene sees a taxi driver disturbed in his sleep by the sound of a knock. He tells the person to go away, but the door opens. When he opens his eyes to tell the person to read the signs, he’s shocked to see a little electronic toy that jumps at him. This is a nod to a different variant of the animatronics in Freddy’s universe, giving us a sign of what might be coming next for us.
