31 Nights of Horror Five Nights at Freddy’s

Platform: Peacock

Director: Emma Tammi

Release Year: 2023

Watch Date: October 31, 2023

My Rating: 8.7

I’m going to be honest; I don’t know anything about the video game. However, I have been really excited about this movie coming out, and I was super delighted to watch it. I was afraid it was gonna be disappointing, but it wasn’t. Good, family-friendly horror films are hard to find.

When he was a kid, Mike was supposed to be watching his little brother, Garrett, when Garrett was kidnapped. Many years later, Mike is still trying to control his dreams and figure out who took Garrett. Now he has a little sister, Abby, that he has custody of because their parents died. However, his awful aunt is trying to get custody of Abby.

Mike has trouble holding down a job and ends up taking a night security job at Freddy Fazbear’s…which is like a Chuck E. Cheese. He gets to the job and finds his locker (with the creepy balloon boy staring at him) and a training video. The first night goes smoothly, except that when he dreams he sees five kids in his dream. They run away when he tries to talk to them Mike goes home to relieve his babysitter, Max. Max then meets up with mean Aunt Jane and she and her brother plan to break into Freddy’s to get Mike fired.

The second night, he falls asleep, and the five kids appear in his dream again. He asks them for help, but again, they run away. He catches up to a red-headed boy who cuts his arm. He wakes up to find Vanessa, the police officer, at the front door. She fixes the cut on his arm that has followed him into the real world. Vanessa introduces Mike to the Fazbear animatronics: Freddy, Foxy, Chica, and Bonnie (and the unnamed cupcake). After Max and Vanessa close up in the morning, Max and her friends go into Freddy Fazbear’s to do some damage.

The animatronics come to life and kill all four members of the vandalism crew. Vanessa shows up at his house to tell Mike about the break in and yell at him for sleeping on the job. He explains about his brother and why he sleeps. She tells him not to do it again. Unable to get a hold of Max, Mike takes Abby to work with him. He cleans up the mess left by the vandals and sees the balloon boy in the closet again. After he finishes, he falls asleep. He wakes up to Abby screaming.

Mike sees her surrounded by the animatronics. Abby introduces Mike to her friends. They go home and go back together the next night. Vanessa shows up and Mike learns more about the costumes and how people can wear them. But the costumes have a snapping lock mechanism that if triggered can kill the wearer. Abby gets hurt and Vanessa tells Mike she will shoot him if he ever brings Abby back to Freddy’s. Mike and Abby go home. In the morning, Mike calls Aunt Jane to watch Abby so he can go back to Freddy’s. Abby misunderstands and locks herself in her room.

Mike goes back to Freddy’s, and in the dream, he tells the kids that they can have Abby so he can always have dreams where his family is still together, but he instantly takes it back. The kids attack him. He wakes up and is attacked by the animatronics. Foxy charges at him, and the next thing we see is him waking up and being treated by Vanessa.

Vanessa explains that the kids were killed by her father, William Afton. Afton also happens to be the person who took Garrett. Afton put the bodies of the five kids into the animatronics, where the cops wouldn’t think to look. Meanwhile, Golden Freddy has gone to get to get Abby and take her back to Freddy’s. The animatronics plan on putting her in her own costume and keeping her forever. Mike goes back to save her and runs into the Yellow Bunny….

A fight ensues and Mike has Abby run off. Vanessa comes to help and is stabbed by her father. Once Mike and Abby are back together Mike realizes that they need to draw a new picture of the yellow bunny killing the kids so they see what really happened. The animatronics then attack Afton and make the spring locks on his suit activate, giving him a slow, painful death.

The end of the movie sees the kids still stuck at Freddy’s, Afton dying in a closet, Abby doing much better in school, and Vanessa in a coma. There is a mid-credit scene where a cab driver from earlier in the movie is snoozing and there is a knock on his door, and a passenger comes in…it’s the creepy balloon boy. I have a theory that the balloon boy is Garrett, and he’s just been trying to make contact with Mike.

I super love that instead of using CGI, they used Jim Henson’s Creature Shop instead. Puppets gave a much more real effect, in my opinion. Maybe I’m a little bit old school….but I don’t think so. The cinematography, casting, effects, script, and plot were all good. I’m told there are great easter eggs for lovers of the games. I will absolutely watch this movie again.

Photo Credit: imdb.com