The Reel Rejects - FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S (2023) IS NIGHTMARE FUEL! MOVIE REVIEW!!

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Nothing else is Rees. Hi, I'm Gene Chatsky. You may know me as the host of the Her Money podcast or the financial editor of NBC's Today Show for 25 years. Today, I'd personally like to invite you to join my women-led investing club. It's called Investing Fix with two Xs. We walk through current market trends, teach investing fundamentals, and build a real portfolio together. Plus, your first month is absolutely free. So come check us out at Investingfix.com. We'd love to have you. Shall we do it, dude? Let's do it. All right, count us in. All right, five nights at Freddy's commencing in a three, a two, and a one.

Starting point is 00:01:24 Well, I can tell you a couple things. What can you tell me? I can tell you that I'm grateful to Prepper for editing this down. I know this was PG-13, but there were some very intense moments, so you had your work cut out for you, Prepper.

Starting point is 00:01:38 I can also tell you I'm thankful for the people, and if they're thankful for us, if they're on Apple or Spotify, five stars, YouTube thumbs up, leave a comment, let us know your thoughts. I also can tell you guys if you're not already following us

Starting point is 00:01:49 at Real Rejects and you're seriously missing out. That's where all that good juice is. I'm putting these guys through the ringer, so make it be for a reason. we didn't get a chance to ask patrons for questions for this because unfortunately sometimes due to scheduling restrictions and whatever this was a very last minute shoot holidays etc so we had to squeeze us in without asking

Starting point is 00:02:13 you guys for questions but we will do our best to think about what you would want to know and try to answer those ourselves starting with of course the basics Andrew I want to know from you how do you feel about five nights at Freddy's I think it was appropriate first of all, that you asked for a five-star rating for five nights at Freddy's, so they definitely got to give a seven. Yes, exactly. You know what?

Starting point is 00:02:36 There were parts of this film I really enjoyed, like the deep complex themes. I like that it was deliberately slow, no doubt, to really focus on a more character-driven thing, and it was focusing on atmosphere. And, you know, there was definitely things I was invested in. And I really like Josh Hutcherson's character. I thought he gave a very grounded performance,

Starting point is 00:02:56 and you could see he was written with guilt and trauma. And I like horror movies that focus on the characters, get us invested, and we want nothing to happen to them. So I think that was, I like the deliberate decision to make it a slow burn. As long as the slow burn is fascinating and interesting, and you have characters that are complex and bring a sense of humanity to them. So I thought that was a wise choice, and I appreciated that. No doubt I really liked the sister a great amount to.

Starting point is 00:03:24 I thought they had a very complicated relationship, understandably so. They had a very tragic and horrific history within the family, so it was only naturally so that they would have that. So, you know, I thought there was a great emotional arc throughout this journey of the film of healing. And, you know, I'm really a proponent of you need each other to heal. It's not impossible to do via isolation, but I think having a very nice support system in your corner really does help. help, and I like that they found it with each other through bondsmanship, and I thought

Starting point is 00:03:59 that was really endearing and sweet. I thought the little girl, she was great. What an incredible performance, so she was acting with really incredible actors, too, so she had to hold her own weight, and I thought she really did an incredible job. I don't know the actress's name, Abby, the little girl, but she did a fantastic job. She was really sincere, really sweet, and I really bought and believe like I didn't I didn't really know anything about this franchise I knew like the Bears or whatever but aside from that I didn't really know we were going to go into

Starting point is 00:04:28 the supernatural territory but I thought the film did a good job of blending the whole supernatural bit into with the crowded bit because it's such a serious and deep complex theme here that we were dealing with when it came to when it came to

Starting point is 00:04:44 the whole thing of the trauma and all that stuff so I thought that blended really nicely but yeah, I thought that relationship and was the heart of the film. The Matthew Lillard thing, like, he was great, and I know he wasn't in the film a ton,

Starting point is 00:05:00 but every moment of screen time that he was on he chewed the scenery, and I like that. He was very unpredictable and sinister, but at the same time, he was kind of sincere in a way. Like, we were kind of in the beginning when we were talking about him. Like, I can't tell, is he being sincere, or is he, like, kind of,

Starting point is 00:05:17 like, is he being a little vindictive and scary to at the same time with his prowess in the way he's delivering his line so i did like that he was giving you a little foreshadowing of you know what's to come but i'm going to assume it was supposed to be obvious because who else was it going to be right i know it was probably annoying for you guys to hear me say 10 000 times it was him but it was kind of obvious right and i'm i'm a very big fan of when it's not predictable and things like when twist are thrown at a when i don't see coming, but I get it. It's Matthew Lillard. Who else were you going to do? But I also

Starting point is 00:05:54 thought, I also understand that this is a small town, but I'm like, there was a lot of coincidences too in this film, like for him to go to get hired by the guy who kidnapped. I'm not saying it's impossible. Coincidences do happen. I've experienced many coincidences in my life. So it does happen. I totally understand that. But to be hired by the man who snatched his little brother, And I do recognize that when he said the line, he was about to say his last name and then, like, froze. Like, that was kind of, I guess if you rewatch the film, you'll know, like, that's why he stopped mid-sentence.

Starting point is 00:06:29 But I also figured this big tragedy that happened in a small town, that's probably what I was thinking. But I kind of felt like that was really, really obvious. And I don't personally gravitate towards obviousness. But I still like Matthew Liller. I thought that was great. And I thought, Vanessa, she, I did like her performance. I like that.

Starting point is 00:06:48 she was trying to break the cycle in terms of she grew up in a horrific household I can imagine with this evil being but associated as her father so that's all she knew but I appreciate that she was trying to go the road less traveled and she had a sense of humanity that he did not and yeah I thought she did a great job so what about you Roxy what are your thoughts I really like when movies have the theme of if you are living in in the past you can't be living in the present and I think that thematically speaking this movie really touched me especially in the moment of you can live in this dream forever and be with your brother but then it's saying you can go to the past and you can keep living there but then you lose

Starting point is 00:07:37 the present and your future um and the the embodiment of that through his relationship with abbey I thought was really strong the actors those two actors had a lot of chemistry together their sibling dynamic was really endearing to me and especially you know you and I watching this it's interesting that they picked us to watch us for the channel because we're you're extremely close with your sister I'm extremely close with my brother so sibling dynamic movies really do it for me and um I yeah I just really I enjoyed that the themes and the relationships and the development of those characters. I think in order for this movie to have been great, it might have needed a larger budget

Starting point is 00:08:25 because we might have needed to bring in more storylines and therefore more people and therefore more locations. Because similar to you with the Matthew Lillard situation, I feel like that wasn't just obvious. They didn't know it was obvious. the way that they revealed it felt like it was supposed to be a reveal in order for something to be a reveal

Starting point is 00:08:51 you have to have had other possibilities on the table agree yeah it's a great point and we didn't because every character we had met up to that point was either dead or in the room with us so I really feel like we kind of needed

Starting point is 00:09:07 a B story here and to be introduced to a few other people if that was supposed to be a reveal or they should have just told us up front this man is evil this is what he's been doing he's luring people in by getting this position where he hires people based on them being bad people he's taking care of them or whatever so that the audience isn't using this like it's a guessing game because we're waiting until the last the third act to take off our our yellow mask and it's like wait do you guys think we didn't

Starting point is 00:09:42 know that i don't like when the movie doesn't know that the audience is on obviously going to be smart enough to pick that up. When you talked about the coincidence aspect, I also think that one of the things that they teach you, um, when you, if you're writing scripts, which any of you guys at home, I know a lot of you guys are filmmakers or aspiring filmmakers, one of the first things you learn, uh, is that you're allotted one coincidence per script, like in order for a script to not be crucified, there can be one coincidence, whether that's like, oh, they met earlier at the wedding and then later on they're at a funeral whatever it is and i i live by that

Starting point is 00:10:20 because like you said coincidences do happen in life i think this was too big of a coincidence for it to be acceptable the fact that he reads his last name of schmidt and he's like oh and then he's like i want to kill this guy too it's like all the ducks had to align for that to be the case um and then the part that i was the most interested in by the way i liked this movie. It's not that I didn't like this movie, but the part that I was most interested in was the cop and I was like, oh, for sure she's either not there or she's got more to do with this. Like, that's the part that could be the reveal. But just the fact that it was her dad and then she's like, but I can't go there. I feel like I'm hoping that the lore is expanded on in Five Nights at Freddy's

Starting point is 00:11:06 two so that maybe we do find out he did this to her sister. He had her under a spell as well. He had something on her, like something more than just that's your dad because you're a grown-ass woman and you're a cop. Why haven't you shot him? Why haven't you? Why haven't you? I understand he's your father, but that's not a good enough reason for us to still like you if you've just been like, well, he's my dad. So I know he's been mass murdering children and I'm a cop, but no worries. That's my dad. I tried to warn you.

Starting point is 00:11:42 like that's just an absolute load of crap so I feel like if there isn't more to that in the second one that's a hugely missed opportunity and if there is more they were clearly banking on getting a second one to get there and I kind of think we needed a little bit more on the first so for all those reasons I think that this could have been improved with a few adjustments but the fact that I love the theme I love the characters and I thought it was a cool world that we were building the atmosphere was cool so cool it makes it still at least a good movie. Yeah, and I like that this film didn't rely on jump scares, too. It was focusing more on the characters. I do agree with you, too, that if you don't want it to be so obvious, who the villain's going to be, introduce a couple other characters because we kept on pointing out, who the hell else could it be besides Matthew Lillard at this point? Right.

Starting point is 00:12:37 If you would have just introduced... Matthew Lillard, king of scream, king of the franchise where you can't guess who the killer is right right that would have been fun because i that's honestly one of my and i know this isn't scream not trying to be scream or anything of course but that's one of my favorite aspects in a murder mystery or yeah like is this a whodunit yeah no it's not but it can't be yeah and of course not but the point being is i love whodontence or i love scream where it's like just playing around and guessing who the killer could be and that reveal it's part of the mystery of it so if they would have just introduced a couple different characters

Starting point is 00:13:12 or even done what you said with her with the sister twist or her being a ghost, that could have been even more fascinating as well, but I think they still have an opportunity. Definitely to rectify that in the second film, with just let's get a little more lore on that back story because she was a cop. I understand, look, it's easier said than done

Starting point is 00:13:33 when a family member is a mass murderer. Of children. Yeah, of children. Having said all that, if that was my family member, as hard as it would be. sorry. I'm calling. Of course you are.

Starting point is 00:13:44 If I'm a police officer or I have the ability to dial 911, I'm sending you away. I kind of thought what the reveal might be is that her sister was the blonde girl. So she's inside one of these animatronics. And the dad has said that if she outs him, that he's going to kill the sister who's still living through the animatronic or something that made it. He needs to have something on her. That would be a good hold on her. Either that was going to be that or that she was a ghost and she was that little girl. Right.

Starting point is 00:14:12 Because otherwise, to be honest, I have zero respect for her and I hate her. Yeah, it makes no sense. And I, as you pointed out, makes it, I get it. It's her dad. It's easier said than none, but still, she's, he's mass murder. And you're a cop. Yeah. And people in general, too, you're a cop.

Starting point is 00:14:28 Did you took, maybe she took that position to benefit him and to make sure that he doesn't get on the wrong side of the law. I mean, he's been brainwashing her his whole life. So I did appreciate it. As much as we were crapping on her, no doubt, she did do the right thing in the end. So with that I do. And she paid the price for it. She's on life support, literally.

Starting point is 00:14:51 Got to imagine she will be in the sequel, as we were saying. But I do appreciate in the end, she still made the right move. And she did break the vicious cycle of the family. Since the patrons can't ask us questions, I have a question for everybody at home. This is not to shame anybody. This is not to, I'm going to not go to, nobody's going to go in the comments and flip out at you. I just am genuinely curious. is there, let us know in the comments,

Starting point is 00:15:14 was it a reveal for you who was under the yellow rabbit mask? Was that a reveal? Or did you know the whole time it was Matthew Lillard? And also, too, to your point, is it, if you are a player who played the video game,

Starting point is 00:15:29 is he the villain in the game? I don't know, because we never played the game. So, like, genuinely asking. Because it wasn't a reveal for us at all. Yeah, I just can't. And again, no shame if it was a reveal for you but like i don't understand how that could be possible kind of because

Starting point is 00:15:48 there was no other we killed the aunt we killed the um the uh babysitter we killed the babysitter's man we kill i mean i guess it could have been the lawyer like there was literally no other they did not set it up no no yeah just that doesn't really make sense to me um it doesn't i agree with you also kudos to the little girl it's very difficult at that age to hold your own Josh Hutcherson's been at this for a very long time

Starting point is 00:16:18 and I feel like their chemistry really is the reason this movie worked they gave it their all and I believed him like he he really he took this seriously this could have been sloshy

Starting point is 00:16:30 and it was not it was he really really played into it and I think he you know he's got to be number one on the call sheet he sets the tone on set and same thing with Matthew Lillard with his monologue at the end.

Starting point is 00:16:42 I mean, that man could have come into this being like, eh, it's a paycheck, I'm only in a few minutes of the movie. And he really, he delivered. And he does. So respect to the actors involved, for sure. No, I agree. I appreciate even if the movie is called Five Nights and Freddy's, and this is something that you take to heart and love, that's cool.

Starting point is 00:17:03 I've never played the game, so I don't know. But yeah, they easily could have just looked at it and read the script and goes, it's called Five Nights of Freddy's. this is definitely schlocky and I'm not gonna put my effort in and I'm just gonna take the paycheck as you just mentioned so

Starting point is 00:17:16 but I love that they gave it their all you could really feel the complexity in their performance and their facial expressions and I always appreciate that whether you love a film or don't like a film you can always appreciate a good performance

Starting point is 00:17:28 no matter what and Josh Hutcherson and Matthew Lillard you could tell they were giving it they're all so but I still I still enjoyed the film I hope this doesn't sound like we are crapping on

Starting point is 00:17:39 I think we're just giving some constructive things that we think could have just up the film even more than what we already thought was good. And I did say part of that I think is due to budget, so you know you do what you can with the budget you have. I'm hopeful because this movie performed well

Starting point is 00:17:54 that the second movie hears some of the, not here's some of this because it's coming out right now, but I'm sure people were talking about this stuff. And I think that there's a lot of room for cool discovery. Like what happened with the dad? They left that pretty open-ended. Is he still out there and he just left?

Starting point is 00:18:11 Did he take his own life? What happened with the dad? The daughter, why is she protecting her father for this long? Obviously, Matthew Lillard saying, I'll always be back. What goes down with that? Did the aunt actually die? Like you said, is he going to get blamed for that? I was so curious about them, like a dead body.

Starting point is 00:18:33 Not just that dead body, but what about the babysitter? All the dead bodies at his place of work. Yeah, like he would be the first son. Like, are we going to suspect that it was animatronics at a, come on. Right. So the second movie has opportunity to do a lot of cool things and I hope they do. What are you looking for? I'm just looking at Rotten Tomatoes and why.

Starting point is 00:18:52 Oh, wait, you don't like playing that game. You just tell me what it is. I love going. Yeah, yeah. I would guess this would have a higher fan score. Sorry, popcorn meter than what's it called? The fans would be higher than. You are exactly.

Starting point is 00:19:05 You are exactly correct. So this got a 33% from the. critics I'm not surprised by that I'm not either yeah and this got an 86 from the fans yeah that sounds about right like because what would be really cool about this is getting a bunch of friends going to the theater or having a night at your place and watching this this is the kind of thing that is a bunch of fun you can have a beverage check it out enjoyable it's probably fairly rewatchable it was not difficult to get through but critics this is the kind of thing that They would slam because there were things like, da, da, dot, duh.

Starting point is 00:19:40 For sure, for sure. And I could see the slow pace and the reveal, too. While I enjoyed the slow burn because it was focusing on characters and themes that I resonate towards personally, I could understand critics going, no, just no. But this is saying, like, the green marks and the minus marks were what this film did good or well, rather, and what this film you know the this what it no what is that I don't know what this is on IMDB what it says it did well and what it oh I've never seen this oh yeah so it says the cinematography was a summary on IMDB if you guys didn't know what this is so this is

Starting point is 00:20:17 cinematography was good and it was effects yeah atmospheric performance but what it didn't do well I think the character development honestly with like Josh Hutchinson and his sister I thought it was fine but yeah but it says character development lacking at same with adaptation direction jump scares lore and suspenseful I think suspense was fine honestly but yeah but i think they mean by suspense it was not it was predictable okay fair enough but i i hear you uh any final thoughts on the movie no look i agree with everything you're saying and i think we had some strong points that we think could have just elevated the film a little bit more but honestly i was entertained there were things i really adored about this film i really

Starting point is 00:20:57 resonated with the characters, especially Josh Hutchinson, or with Mike rather and Abby, that relationship really was the heartbeat of the film. I'm excited to see the second one. I think there are some things that they left open-ended that they can definitely add some backstory to or that they left ambiguous that they can really get into a little more. That adds a little level of emotion and depth. But aside from that, no. And I do have a cut. Do we have time for one or two Trivios or are we on a time jump right now? If you want to. Yeah. Are you cool with that?

Starting point is 00:21:30 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hit me. So because of Foxy's skeletal like structure, he was built as a full body matronic puppet and performed by Ross, Russ, Walco, along with a group of puppeteers from Jim Henson's creature shot. Very cool. In shots where Foxy walked, it took as many as

Starting point is 00:21:45 six puppeteers to accomplish his full range of movements. I'll do one more. That's crazy. Yeah. Unlike... Are you done with that one or that was... That was that one. Okay, you didn't even take a breath between... I'll do one more. I didn't know if it was still part of it.

Starting point is 00:21:59 That's crazy. Six. Wow. That thing must have been heavy. Not five, but six. Yes. All right. Is Five Nights and Fridays, too,

Starting point is 00:22:09 called Five Nights at Freddy's two? Or is it called Six Nights at Freddy's? I believe it's five nights at Freddy's too. Last one, unlike most studios, using CGI for bringing creatures to life, Jim Henson's Creature Shop was responsible for the creation of the Fosbear animatronics. that makes sense of why they look so good

Starting point is 00:22:27 totally checks out I love animatronics yeah me too my final thoughts are that I feel like I know how I feel about a movie when I know I have to come in and cover the sequel because this happens to me

Starting point is 00:22:40 I pretty much only do franchises at this point and I can know how I start to feel if I'm like oh no I have to come in I know I like this because the idea of coming in to watch Five Nights at Freddy's 2 when that comes out on VOD is exciting to me. Like, I want to know

Starting point is 00:22:57 if they answer some of these questions. I want to see where the story goes. So that means they did enough with the first movie to world build and character develop that I care and I'm interested. So that's a good sign to me. Agreed.

Starting point is 00:23:09 And that's what we have for you guys. Don't worry by that point. We'll definitely be getting your patron questions. Yes. We appreciate you guys. And always looking at the comments, so if you have questions for us,

Starting point is 00:23:19 feel free to write them in there. I'll do my best to answer them. I know you sometimes check them out too. So we'd love to hear from you guys. And other than that, we'll see you next time, Rejects. Vote 1866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge.

The Reel Rejects - FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S (2023) IS NIGHTMARE FUEL! MOVIE REVIEW!!

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