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San Francisco | Culture

Childhood Memory Unlocked: A Five Nights At Freddy’s Movie Review

Starr Washington-Moo Student Contributor, San Francisco State University
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at San Francisco chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

Five Nights At Freddy’s is a point and click, survival indie horror game released back in August of 2014 (for context, I was in the sixth grade) the game quietly released on Steam, IOS, and Android by struggling game developer Scott Cawthon. FNAF was Cawthon’s last attempt at game development before he called it quits. But ever since August of 2014, FNAF has been single handedly the most talked about video game for nearly the last ten years. 

In those past (almost) ten years, the FNAF community has been trying to uncover the secrets of Five Nights At Freddy’s, it wasn’t the heart pounding jumpscares or creepy animatronics that captured our attention. What caught our attention was the lore, the story, the secrets. FNAF is more than just a point and click, survival indie horror game. FNAF is a story of vengeance, anger, evil, and a troubled family. 

You may be wondering, ten years of obsession over one measly game… no… ever since the release of the original game back in 2014, we have been blessed with a total of 13 video games and 28 different books/novels all related to Five Nights At Freddy’s, and now nearly ten years in the making we finally got our movie.

The scary indie game film adaptation released right in time for Halloweekend and I had my tickets booked for weeks in advance, and I have to say I was left surprised, freaked out, and wanting more in the best way possible. Josh Hutcherson’s chemistry with on screen little sister Piper Rubio is something heartwarming and raw, just what we needed for such a thriller. These two teamed up with Elizabeth Lail (From Netflix’s Original Series“You”) worked fairly well together. There’s a few cheesy moments that even though I can acknowledge were cheesy, the instant gratification from those cheesy lines often confirmed certain parts of the lore so I was totally content with it. 

I don’t want to give away any spoilers for obvious reasons but I will say there is an amazing cameo from a famous Youtuber who got a lot of his exposure from Five Nights At Freddy’s!  

I’m sure over the rest of the weekend and for many weeks to come, there will be easter eggs from the movie that are discovered by numerous Reddit and Steam threads. This is how the FNAF community works, as new content comes out whether it’s a book, video game, or even kids toy. We scour through it for weeks, piecing more and more pieces of the puzzle together. We love it, and we know Scott loves it too.   

Thank you to Scott Cawthon and Blumhouse Productions for making one of my childhood dreams (and nightmares) come true!

Starr Washington-Moo

San Francisco '25

Starr Washington is a Her Campus national writer and recent San Francisco State University graduate, where she studied Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts with a minor in Africana Studies. She contributes primarily to the lifestyle and culture verticals, with a growing portfolio of op-eds, reported features, and interviews spotlighting Gen Z voices.

Starr is deeply committed to centering Black stories in her work and consistently champions Black creatives in film, literature, and travel. During her time at SFSU, she served as director of the university’s multicultural center, organized campus-wide cultural celebrations, and taught a student-led course she created titled “Intro to Black Love.”

Outside of Her Campus, Starr is a spicy romance book lover, fiction writer, a wife, and soon-to-be mom.

She’s a Scorpio from Michigan.