Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Five Nights at Freddy's Blu-ray Movie Review

'Five Nights at Freddy's' arrives on Blu-ray disc courtesy of Universal. Three short 'making of' featurettes give viewers brief but informative looks at bringing the fan-favorite video game phenomenon to life, with particular attention paid to the immersive set and film's villainous animatronics. The Blu-ray disc also features a Dolby Atmos audio track, and comes packaged with a DVD. A slipcover and Digital Code are also included.

I'm a board gamer mostly. Sit me down with a copy of Zombicide, Mansions of Madness, Gloomhaven, or Mysterium and I'm happy. I've not played much by way of video games for quite some time. With the rise of first-person shooters, while many of the games are entertaining, I find them to be rather solitary endeavors. Since I'd prefer to get together with my friends when time allows, board games seem a better option. This isn't to say that I'm out of the loop when it comes to video games. There are enough people in my circle who play a wide variety of games that I'm reasonably up-to-date with the newer games and the time-tested franchises. Despite not spending as much time playing as many would say I probably should, I am a sucker for video games that make the jump to the big or small screen, especially when the games themselves have a cinematic feel and scope. Resident Evil burst on the screen from gaming consoles in 2002 and I was instantly a fan, and I've followed along with Milla Jovovich for every single zombie stomping sequel. After having played the first two Tomb Raider games, the films with Angelina Jolie quickly became favorites of a sort, even though neither film was exactly what I was hoping for. I enjoyed 2016's Assassin's Creed enough to back two Kickstarters for the board game. And there is little that needs to be added to the conversation about The Last of Us so suffice it to say that the first season was amazing. After having been aware of the premise of this game and seeing a few trailers, I was more than ready to get snuck in the side door of Freddy Fazbear's and join the fans of the game in what looked to be a very promising and creepy film (franchise, even?).

Five Night's at Freddy's, the movie, had what it needed to succeed. The cast, while a bit quirky, is a mix of new and old favorites lead by Josh Hutcherson (RV, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and The Hunger Games franchise), and ably assisted by Mathew Lillard (from countless live-action and animated Scooby-Doo films, and Thir13en Ghosts) and Mary Stuart Masterson (Some Kind of Wonderful, Bad Girls). Hutcherson does an admirable job bringing the deeply troubled Mike to life. His feeling of responsibility for the abduction of his brother when he was still just a child himself overshadows his every action and dominates his daily life. He struggles to keep a job, a place to live, and custody of his younger sister (who has some issues of her own). Matthew Lillard and Mary Stuart Masterson are both a joy to watch in their supporting roles - he as a counselor in an employment agency who is perhaps more than he appears, and she as a conniving and villainous aunt who is exactly what she appears to be. The unexpected treat in the cast is Elizabeth Lail, who I'd not seen in anything since Once Upon a Time. Her Officer Vanessa is the heart and soul of the picture. She displays a great deal of compassion and empathy toward Mike from the first moment of their meeting. She tends his wounds, educates him on everything Freddy Fazbear's, and does the best she can she can to protect him and his sister Abby.

Beyond the cast, the production value of the film is extremely impressive. Freddy Fazbear's is fully realized as a location featuring an actual set with appropriately contiguous rooms having been constructed. It's loaded for bear with Skee-ball games, pinball machines, a ball pit, and every other sort of game or diversion one would expect to find in a Chuck E. Cheese analog and it is absolutely convincing. There is an appropriate amount of degradation and decay to realistically suggest the passage of time and the accumulation of years of neglect and disuse. A spotty electrical system fleshes out the location with an abundance of dark corners where anything could be hiding and dimly lit corridors that no one wants to traverse. To make matters worse (or better), there are the animatronic denizens of this once-shining bastion of childhood joy - Freddy, Foxy, Bonny, and Chica. All are well past their prime. They are defined now by their age, filth, disrepair, and the toll of their newer, more sinister purpose. They are not the harbingers of birthday fun any longer, and even when completely immobile they are disturbing. Between these two elements, Freddy Fazbear's should be a perfectly terrifying location for a horror film, one that should rival any spooky old castle, haunted house, or summer camp in the middle of nowhere.

Unfortunately for Five Night's at Freddy's, scares are in short supply. The primary reason for this, in my estimation, is that we spend far too little time fighting to survive at the fiendishly fabulous Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. Instead, we relive Mike's brother's abduction through dreams multiple times, and while this is truly terrible, as it is presented here it isn't particularly scary. We hang out with Mike and Abby at their house, having breakfast, talking about Abby's drawings, and trying to get her ready for school or what have you. Mike has a long conversation with Vanessa by the river, he attends meetings about who is going to have custody of Abby, and so on. There are a host of things that occur in this film that keep us away from where we should be. All of this results in what should be backstory being pushed forward and allowed to dominate and what should be the focus becoming almost tertiary. Further, when we finally do get to Freddy's, it's not as scary as it should be because it isn't allowed to be. Mike's primary source of fear and tension when he's working at Freddy's are still his forest-bound dreams. He literally purposefully sleeps on the job. And the more time we spend in his forest dream world, the less time we have for Freddy and the gang. In fact, the balance of the time he and Abby encounter the fully ambulatory Freddy, Foxy, Bonny, and Chica are fun and crazy times, building a giant fort in the middle of the restaurant, dancing, and having what amounts to a middle school sleepover. So much happens to preemptively diffuse all the tension from what should be a creepy and claustrophobic location and its denizens that when the final showdown occurs we're not overly afraid of the animatronics and we're not really sure that Mike can't just leave whenever he wants because he's always done so. Predictability also plagues the plot. While screening the film a third time, my college-aged son, who had neither seen the film nor played the game, walked in during an early scene where Vanessa and Mike were talking. When he asked who she was, I simply responded with, "Who do you think she is?". After a few seconds of consideration, he responded with a surprisingly accurate summary of her character. And predictability and scary don't really mix, either.

Five Nights at Freddy's Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Five Nights at Freddy's fans will be pleased to know that the film has a very solid Blu-ray presentation. Detail levels are quite high and are especially evident in the textures of Abby's toys, numerous blankets, and sweaters. Facial details - eyebrows, lines and wrinkles, and fine hairs - are also frequently easy to spot in the many close-ups of Mike and the others. Skin tones are generally realistic and healthy, appearing to suffer only when under the influence of certain lighting choices. Colors are typically good and nicely saturated, but Mike's world is not very vibrant. His own home and furnishings are rather drab, with Abby's room bringing the most to the color palette with brighter primaries present in her toys and drawings. Upon entering Freddy's what should be a riot of color is instead dingy and aged, as are the animatronics. In this setting, only the neon signs, the evil glowing eyes of the animatronics, and the bright red of the security lights pierce through the grit and grime and are allowed to pop. The darker scenes inside Freddy's can be a bit murky at times with some loss of detail, but not distressingly or distractingly so. I did not notice any banding or other video anomalies or defects.

Five Nights at Freddy's Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Dolby Atmos track included here is much like Mike's home; it isn't flashy or showcase material but it effectively gets the job done. Dialogue comprises most of what the track needs to reproduce and it does so with great accuracy and clarity. It's properly prioritized even in the film's noisiest moments, such as when the animatronics fire up for the first time and perform their programmed pantomime routine to The Romantic's "Talking in Your Sleep", an excellent song but an odd choice for a kid-friendly band at this type of establishment and a bit too on the nose for Mike's dream-focused story arc. Here, as elsewhere, the dialogue sits nicely on top music and we are still able to hear the gears of the animatronics working while hearing Mike and Vanessa's conversation perfectly. Atmospherics in the mall scenes are nicely immersive if a bit subdued. Directionality, even with the more subtle sounds in Mike's dreamscape is very good. The track works the hardest with the film's theme song and any instance when the animatronics are on screen. Gears grind, metal clicks and clanks, and blades whir with convincing realism, and every ominous step of Freddy and his friends is nicely punctuated with resounding bass to add a great deal of weight to their footfalls in an effort to add to their menace. English SDH subtitles are also available.

Five Nights at Freddy's Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

A few special features are included as follows :

Five Nights at Freddy's Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Five Nights at Freddy's had everything it needed to be the start of an entertaining horror movie franchise. With an excellent location, fantastically realized versions of Freddy and his crew, a solid cast, and a massive built-in fanbase, it should have been the first of many amazingly tense and frantic struggles for survival. Instead, we find ourselves spending more time everywhere but Freddy's dealing with issues and subplots that bore rather than thrill and are more of a test of our patience instead of increasing tension we may not be able to endure. While more installments may follow, this film serves neither to make me wish for them to arrive quickly nor to make me want to check out the game. While the technical merits of the disc are strong, this disc is recommended to diehard Five Nights at Freddy's fans only.