Five Nights at Freddy’s slammed as the worst movie of 2023
When it comes to horror movies, few do it as well as Blumhouse. Known as the studio that delivered 2018's beloved Halloween reboot, Jason Blum's horror house has also gifted us the likes of Get Out, Ma, and M3GAN. Unfortunately, its latest robotic romp has apparently fallen short.
There was a lot of hype surrounding Emma Tammi's Five Nights at Freddy's movie, with the 2023 video game adaptation bringing the horror series to life on the silver screen. A FNaF movie has been in the works since 2015, but according to a worrying number, it might not have been worth the wait.
Five Nights at Freddy's slammed as the worst movie of 2023
Five Nights at Freddy's is officially waking from its mechanical slumber, gnashing its way onto our screen and carving itself a lacklustre legacy. Despite boasting an all-star cast of The Hunger Games' Josh Hutcherson and Scream's Matthew Lillard, we're reminded of those days when everyone thought there was a video game movie curse.
Five Nights at Freddy's currently sits with a paltry 29/100 on Metacritic. This is only based on a handful of reviews, but if you head over to Twitter, a growing number of viewers are calling it the worst movie of 2023. Considering the video game series of the same name is a horror icon, it's disappointing that Freddy is a little rusty.
One Twitter critic said, "I don't know sh*t about Five Nights at Freddy's, but that was the worst movie I've seen since Street Fighter," while another added, "Omg Five Nights at Freddy's is the worst movie I've seen in the longest time, like it's not even mildly entertaining to snack on or anything."
There are obviously some who've gone the other way, but with none of the Metacritic reviews sitting in the positive review section, the best we can find from the professionals is NME saying, "At least Scream star Matthew Lillard brings some creepiness into his little screen time. Otherwise, Five Nights At Freddy’s is moribund."
Five Nights at Freddy's won't go R-rated
Click to enlargeFor those hoping that Five Nights at Freddy's can claw back some sort of cult following with a gruesome director's cut, Tammi confirmed an R-rated version doesn't exist. Speaking to Forbes, Tammi admitted, "We knew that some of the fan base would want an R-rated version of this film."
Tammi added, "On the one level, we wanted to be inclusive of the younger audiences and knew we were going to hit the PG-13 rating, but for the audience that also wanted that level of violence, if you will, or at least insinuation of violence, we really wanted to still include elements that felt dark."
Sadly, this means Five Nights at Freddy's won't be getting a later R-rated cut when it streams, just like M3GAN did. For better or worse, we're left with a diluted Five Nights that might not be the horror favourite we were hoping for.
