MOVIE NEWS – It’s a proverb that video games are very difficult to make good movies from – for example, because the viewer is not a player and cannot control the characters – but the makers of Five Nights at Freddy’s were not daunted by the task.

The game, codenamed FNaF (from Five Nights at Freddy’s), is worthy of several sequels, and follows the adventures of Mike, a night security guard who watches over a closed pizzeria. Unbeknownst to him, the animatronic stuffed animals that once entertained children in the eighties come to life at night through the machinations of some supernatural force.

In the toy, Mike is the one the rabid stuffed animals are out to get, so that they can turn him into an animatronic monster, but in the film, the security guard’s little girl Abby is the target. It’s a logical move on the part of the creators, as the trailer suggests that the souls of the children killed in the pizzeria have been moved into the plushies, and you can’t really blame them for wanting to have another playmate. A pretty policewoman also plays an important role in the film, as a kind of guide in the mysterious world of the pizzeria, but one suspects that she has more important tasks to perform.

It is also possible that Blumhouse, which is producing the film, is thinking of franchising it again, as it has done with its low-budget but big-budget thrillers. So perhaps next time the terrifying plushies will step outside the walls of the pizza parlour to terrorise ordinary mortals.

(Five Nights at Freddy’s – domestic release: 2 November 2023)