Patrick crashes through the swinging doors of the kitchen only to find himself back in the fancy restaurant, now even fancier as it is the site of Jamie’s wedding. “The great thing about this wedding is that it’s not just one wedding. Because I couldn’t choose just one bride. Isn’t that great!” Jamie says to the amusement of his guests. He sees Patrick and comes scurrying over. “Where have you been?” For a moment Jamie appears angry but then his face softens. “I’m really nervous,” he admits. Patrick looks around at the guests and finds that he’s also nervous. They are horrific creatures of darkness that only know suffering and pain (or is it pleasure?). “Hey can we talk about this?” Patrick says quietly, but Jamie isn’t listening. “Sure, sure, but first I got two weddings to get to. Three if you count your vow renewal ceremony. Your wife is coming, right?” Patrick stares back at him blankly. “Perfect. Just perfect,” Jamie glowers, “well more wedding for me.” With that he hops up on stage and snaps at the demon priestess to get the show on the road. Rusty hooks fly out from the walls and stab into Jamie’s flash. The priestess places what looks like a tiny bear trap on Jamie’s finger and he stammers out how much he loves Nerdy Demon and a weak, “This sure is nice. I’m getting so much pleasure from this.” Tears stream down his face as he turns to Sultry Demon and can only whimper, “Jesus wept.” The demon brides, delighted, tear at Jamie with their claws to complete the ceremony. Jamie turns painfully to Patrick and holds up some tickets. “And as a final present I want you and yours to join us on the honeymoon. A relaxing five nights at….” That’s right! Five Nights at Freddy’s! You’re probably all like “But wait, I know your cycle inside and out and how in the world is Five Nights at Freddy’s in the Achievement slot? The answer is ‘why not?’ We already completed the year. That’s the achievement. So let us do one of the biggest critical flops of the year that doubles as one of the biggest surprise hits of the year. Let’s go!
Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023) – BMeTric: 50.1; Notability: 17
StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 3.6%; Notability: top 12.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 16.8%; Higher BMeT: The Exorcist: Believer, Meg 2: The Trench, Expend4bles, The Black Demon, Knights of the Zodiac, Best. Christmas. Ever!, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, 65, The Ritual Killer; Higher Notability: Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire, Fool’s Paradise, Ghosted, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Expend4bles, House Party, Haunted Mansion, Heart of Stone, The Out-Laws, Meg 2: The Trench, Old Dads, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, 65, Your Place or Mine, White Men Can’t Jump, Vacation Friends 2, The Exorcist: Believer, About My Father, The Family Plan, Insidious: The Red Door, and 10 more; Lower RT: Freelance, The Ritual Killer, 57 Seconds, Expend4bles, In the Fire, On a Wing and a Prayer, Fool’s Paradise, The Tutor, Vacation Friends 2, Robots, The Re-Education of Molly Singer, The Out-Laws, Knights of the Zodiac, Mafia Mamma, The Exorcist: Believer, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, Pain Hustlers, The Family Plan, God Is a Bullet, Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire, and 16 more; Notes: We had to pivot to this to some extent because we watched Fear … possibly the biggest blunder in recent BMT history. This movie seems far more fun even if it is probably “better”.
RogerEbert.com – 2.0 stars – You ultimately don’t need to care that much about why Abby bonds so quickly with Freddy and the gang, or why Vanessa knows so much about Freddy. But it might have helped if the movie’s programmatic jump scares and mostly unremarkable performances were more memorable. As it is, the movie is both too fast and too slow to be either shocking or moving enough. “Five Nights at Freddy’s” might satisfy the series’ established fans, but everyone else will have to look elsewhere for fun.
(Yup, this is exactly what I heard, that the film was very solid for people who knew the games (and the lore) but no so much otherwise. And I do know stuff about the games since I’ve vaguely watched videos of people playing it. So maybe that bodes well.)
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4d_v-HyR4o/
(I wonder if the kind-of-too-famous guy in the trailer is the bad guy … looks kind of fun, but I can already tell it ends up being more silly than scary in reality. The kill where the girl gets eaten by the robot seems potentially fun though.)
Directors – Emma Tammi – ( Known For: The Wind; BMT: Five Nights at Freddy’s; Notes: She wrote this as well and will be writing I think both a second and third film maybe.)
Writers – Scott Cawthon – ( BMT: Five Nights at Freddy’s; Notes: Huh. The video game creator, but also back in the 90s he used to make bad looking CGI Christian films. So he seems like a 3D artist.)
Seth Cuddeback – ( BMT: Five Nights at Freddy’s; Notes: Nothing else of note, I think the weird bit is that all of these people have future credits on the sequels. I would assume at least a few just did a pass on the first, so I don’t know why IMDb would be thinking they would be attached to the second unless they either are, or there is some default thing happening.)
Emma Tammi – ( BMT: Five Nights at Freddy’s; Notes: She also directed a bit of Into the Dark which is a horror anthology television show.)
Chris Lee Hill – ( Known For: Tragedy Girls; V/H/S/99; Patchwork; Blowing Up Right Now; BMT: Five Nights at Freddy’s; Notes: Alright, here we go. This person definitely was a “horror” person they had do a pass on the script since they are not attached to the sequels.)
Tyler MacIntyre – ( Known For: Tragedy Girls; V/H/S/99; Patchwork; BMT: Five Nights at Freddy’s; Notes: Huh, was mostly an editor (and not even of horror films necessarily), but seems to have tacked to writing pretty high profile horror in the past few years.)
Actors – Josh Hutcherson – ( Known For: The Hunger Games; The Hunger Games: Catching Fire; The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1; The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2; The Polar Express; Bridge to Terabithia; The Disaster Artist; The Kids Are All Right; Journey to the Center of the Earth; Zathura: A Space Adventure; Journey 2: The Mysterious Island; Epic; American Splendor; Kicking & Screaming; Little Manhattan; Escobar: Paradise Lost; Detention; Tragedy Girls; Winged Creatures; Burn; Future BMT: RV; Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant; Firehouse Dog; BMT: Red Dawn; Five Nights at Freddy’s; Notes: He is in probably one of the more anticipated early year BMT films, The Beekeeper starring Jason Statham. I really hope that hits so we can get a nice Winter Season live in.)
Piper Rubio – ( BMT: Five Nights at Freddy’s; Notes: Probably most notable for a recent four episode turn on For All Mankind.)
Elizabeth Lail – ( Known For: Gonzo Girl; Future BMT: Mack & Rita; BMT: Five Nights at Freddy’s; Countdown; Notes: Was recently in You (the Netflix show) which I think must be finished by now since I think it was intended to only go four seasons.)
Budget/Gross – $20 million / Domestic: $137,275,620 (Worldwide: $290,501,123)
(Jesus Christ … I mean … Jesus Christ. Yeah, that’s why you play the game. Horror can really just print money. This film only cost $20 million (basically a set and some dark hard to see CGI I guess, only need one reasonably priced star), so that is a lot of dough.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 31% (66/211): Loaded with Easter eggs, Five Nights at Freddy’s may be fun to watch for fans of the game, but most viewers of any other persuasion will find this adaptation muddled and decidedly unscary.
(Yes. This is everything I’ve heard about the film. That it isn’t a good film, but (as Ebert used to say) it is good for what it is. Although I actually think the reviews are like: it’s bad for what it is but also the fans will like it.)
Reviewer Highlight: You may chuckle, but it’s hard to tell if the movie is laughing with you. – Natalia Winkelman, New York Times
Poster – Five Crazy Nights
(I find this surprisingly boring. I like the sign, obviously, but otherwise seems a little ‘blah’ for a film about a killer Chuck E. Cheese or whatever. Some of the alternated are better. C+.)
Tagline(s) – Can you survive? (D)
(Nah. That’s no fun. Think of how many films this could apply to.)
Keyword(s) – Year 2023
Top 10: Oppenheimer (2023), Barbie (2023), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), The Flash (2023)
Future BMT: 84.6 Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 67.0 The Exorcist: Believer (2023), 48.0 Insidious: The Red Door (2023), 43.8 Fool’s Paradise (2023), 43.5 House Party (2023), 37.2 Paint (2023), 35.8 Freelance (2023), 31.6 The Machine (2023), 28.1 Haunted Mansion (2023), 27.7 Love Again (2023), 24.9 Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023), 20.9 The Marsh King’s Daughter (2023), 18.4 Nefarious (2023), 9.1 The Shift (2023), 9.1 Camp Hideout (2023), 8.8 Back on the Strip (2023), 8.3 Sweetwater (2023)
BMT: Meg 2: The Trench (2023), Expend4bles (2023), 65 (2023), Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023), Retribution (2023), Hypnotic (2023), My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023), Mafia Mamma (2023), About My Father (2023), Fear (2023)
Best Options (imdb-keyword-based-on-video-game): 50.1 Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023)
(I didn’t expect to see another video game film available. I was just curious. Given the success of the Super Mario Bros. this year though I guess I wouldn’t have been survived if I forgot some other film was based on a video game.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 11) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Matthew Lillard is No. 4 billed in Five Nights at Freddy’s and No. 3 billed in Wicker Park, which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 1 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (4 + 3) + (1 + 3) = 11. If we were to watch Firehouse Dog we can get the HoE Number down to 10.
Notes – Because of Foxy’s skeletal-like structure, he was built as a full-body animatronic puppet and performed by Russ Walko, along with a group of puppeteers from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. In shots where Foxy walked, it took as many as six puppeteers to accomplish his full range of movements.
Unlike most studios using CGI for bringing creatures to life, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop was responsible for the creation of the Fazbear animatronics.
The animatronic characters were performed by puppeteers from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. For shots where the characters weren’t moving, the puppeteers would control both the head and body movements. In the rare instances where a character would walk or dance, a stunt performer would don the costume while the puppeteers controlled the heads remotely.
Even before the movie was released, producer Jason Blum said that it had already made back its budget from selling the streaming and theatrical distribution rights.
In August 2018, Scott Cawthon said that if the first film were to be successful, there could be a second and third film, following the events of the second and third games, respectively. In January 2023, in an interview on the podcast WeeklyMTG, Matthew Lillard revealed he signed a three-picture deal with the studios.
Bad Movie Twins 