by Barley Lewis-Mccabe
I have to come clean. I did not see this movie in a theater. I bought front row seats to what may be the year’s best film, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (FNAF). However, it turns out that showing was at the same time as the Rock Auction, so I couldn’t go. Instead, I watched it on my TV via an HDMI cable and a totally legal website. I got to see the movie the way I’m sure Emma Tammi herself intended it: deep fried visuals, crunchy audio, theater sounds, laughs during parts where a laugh isn’t needed, coughs, sneezes, the ever present ‘Cinemacity.rip’ watermark and, of course, Spanish subtitles that couldn’t be turned off. So, let’s talk Freddy.
I didn’t go into this expecting a good movie. I only wanted a few things: cool robots, some callbacks to the games, to be a bit scared at times and to get out of my head. I wanted to watch a silly movie as an adult, based on something I liked as a kid. Despite everything I can happily say that I got everything I wanted.
Much like the first movie, the filmmakers took a lot of liberties with the story of FNAF 2, and that’s what makes it so good — or, at the very least watchable. FNAF lore is confusing, stupid and made up along the way. If the movie had stayed faithful to the games, it would’ve been a boring, nonsensical mess. The movie knew what to do with such a dense cannon to work with, using the material for inspiration to tell a fun story with similar core beats. But it’s not all pepperoni pizzas — it has a threequel bait ending, the characters have no real purpose and at some points act at random, it has nearly the exact same story as the first and half the actors learned how to act from Gal Gadot. But that’s ok, it’s a movie with a lot of heart; a sequel that does its job, continues the story and isn’t just a soulless cash grab.
Listen, not every movie has to win an Oscar, not everything has to be so serious, or important. Sometimes a movie’s artistic value isn’t in the content but in the experience. This is one such movie, a theme park ride of a film. I’m the intended audience for this movie: a college aged stoner who liked FNAF as a kid. I like it just because it is. It’s a fan service movie in the best way possible, because it’s actually fun to watch. While there’s no shortage of, “oh shit it’s that guy,” or, “what the fuck, its the thing from the game,” they have some really good scares, and it consistently keeps you on your toes. At the end of the day it’s a movie that looks cool — if you aren’t watching it filmed off of someone elses phone. Which, of course, I didn’t. Watch this movie with your buddies, kick back, don’t think so hard and enjoy something that doesn’t matter. Trust me, you’ll have fun.
Barley is the opinionated opinion editor, photographer and an untraditional reporter who focuses on social change and stories with a real human impact. If you’d like to reach the grooviest dude in the newsroom email bl258@humboldt.edu.
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