★★

Blumhouse have grand ambitions for Five Nights at Freddy’s. It’s why so much of this inaugural adaptation of the wildly popular video game franchise feels like set up. Certainly, there’s more mythos than murder here. Perhaps, in the long run, this will pay off. There’s no doubting a sequel will come, with box office records already set to tumble. A lack of gore, securing a lower than expected age certification, will go a long way in audience reach and potential. But that’s all business-speak. Where is the thrill and flair? What of the story? In the here and now, episode one is much too muted for its own good. Often dull, even. There’s much to admire but not quite enough to inspire great yearning for a sixth night on the big screen.

For fans of the franchise, of course, the film is less a beginning than organic continuation of narratives almost a decade in the making. Scott Cawthon’s original game proffered only teasers of the backstory to come. As co-writer and producer here, Cawthon is free to pick and choose elements from any one of his nine core games, three novels and twenty plus shorts, the lore having snowballed with each new release. That the production has whittled through two studios, three directors and a dozen producers in the eight years since it was first announced suggests the task of unifying such a diaspora of ideas was no picnic. One can but wonder what Gremlins’ Chris Columbus might have done with concept. We’ll never know.

Emma Tammi’s interpretation is character driven and surprisingly downbeat. Mike Schmidt was but a faceless avatar in the original game. Here, as portrayed by Hunger Games alum Josh Hutchinson, he’s the trauma laden guardian of orphaned younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio). It is desperation, rather than inspiration, that leads Mike to Freddy’s. A will to appear stable, in the face of a dire resume, as his withering Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson) threatens to take custody of Abby. Not that there’s anything stable about a job at this joint. If only they’d put on the ad that night security at Freddy’s also including stewardship over the restaurant’s gurning animatronic mascots, each of which just happens to be possessed by the undead and deeply unhappy. Only after he’s started does Elizabeth Lail’s Vanessa, a local cop, plead he take caution. Not that she’ll say why.

It’s the animatronics that most impress here, even if they’re underused. The designs largely adhere to those of the game but there’s brilliance in the modelling and execution. This is the work of the Jim Henson Creature Shop and top tier stuff for a slim budget. What with the sad eyes and dilapidated fluff, they’re an endearing quartet and it’s all too easy to be swept up in the make believe. The result is a film that only occasionally chills, with Tammi admirably failing to elicit fear from a lumbering bear and his farmyard pals. It’s a fantastically silly concept but taken way too seriously by a story that finds itself frustratingly bogged down by its protagonist’s thunderously dull personal psychodrama. This isn’t Hutchinson’s fault, per se, but even he struggles to sell Mike’s ludicrous fascination with hokum dream visions.

Far too much of the film’s unnecessary runtime is wasted in exposition and tedious convolutions. None of it stands up to scrutiny. And, yet, it doesn’t need to. There’s not a cinemagoer out there coming to Five Nights at Freddy’s for an insight into the effects of childhood trauma on adolescent maturity and perpetual grief. It’s the 80s nostalgia and B-movie thrills that draw a crowd. There are flavours of that here but little to chew over. Perhaps this is but the aperitif before a far superior main course. That would be welcome. You just wish you were having more fun while waiting.

T.S.