Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Prof. Popinjay

THERE WILL BE NO SPOILERS IN THIS ARTICLE…because this is a review of an experience, not the movie itself.

I took two of my middle school aged children to this PG-13 film. I did this because I knew if I didn’t it would probably come up in their therapy later.

“In conclusion, the cause of your anxiety is your father never taking you to see the Five Nights at Freddy’s Movie.”

To say these two kids were excited would be an understatement. As we drove to the theater there was nary a 30 second interval when one of them wasn’t “harmp-harmping” the “Les Toreadors” melody from Bizet’s “Carmen”, a song that features significantly in the game this film was based on.

“Harmp-Harmping” is the only way to describe the sound they make because it’s not humming or singing. It’s “harmping”.

We get to the theater on Friday night and it’s packed. People of all ages are wearing FNAF paraphernalia and bunny ears and harmp-harmping can be heard coming from every direction.

We get to our seats. I opt to sit next to another gentleman who looked moderately happy to be there but slightly less so upon realization that he would be spending the duration of the film trying not to cuddle with the likes of me, smelly and tattered man that I am. In this way I would be a partition between my children and some weirdo, my children never once considering that they are probably the weirdest ones in the room.

I was wrong. The theater was filled, FILLED, with middle school aged weirdos just like them. Not a single one of them had any clue as to common movie theater courtesies and etiquette, a fact for which I could not begrudge them as the energy levels were unanimous and, should the curmudgeon manifest,  he would likely find himself lynched by a mob of midsized humans wearing bunny ears.

Through the trailers the half-witty commentary was as a solitary sound like a million frogs in a swamp outside a Floridian Motel 6 all randomly repeating “harmp”.

At the end of the trailers was a commercial for Target after which one youngling shouted “My mom works at Target!” At this the whole audience cheered and shouted accolades to the young boy’s mom, Target, and gainful employment in general. This crowd was primed and pumped. God help us once the movie starts.

The opening, the title, the opening credits! All met with cheers. Every character introduced was praised. The actors who played each character were praised somehow separately from their character! When Matthew Lillard appeared on screen the whole place unanimously shouted “It’s Shaggy!” Remember when Mathew Lillard played Shaggy in the live action Scooby-Doo movie twenty-one years ago? These 12 year-olds remembered. That’s pretty amazing considering to them any movie older than fifteen years may as well be a black-and-white non-talky starring Roscoe Arbuckle.

And when their favorite YouTuber made a cameo… these kids went out of their freaking minds! They were jumping out of their seats! The state militia had to be called in to keep them in line. Okay I made that last part up. But still, you’d swear the king of England had shown up except the kids actually knew who he was!

Many times some character would show up and a hushed awe would fall over the crowd followed by suspicious whispers and speculation. Were it not for the one kid three seats down audibly orating an ongoing commentary about every jot and tittle in the background, foreground, and all spaces in between, I probably would have been mostly clueless. Every once in a while I’d have to ask one of my weirdos who someone was because the group was clearly a-buzz despite a lack of context and my weirdo would respond with “That’s So-and-so, DaAaAD! Duhhhh!”

“Oh, of course. So-and-so. It’s so obvious. What the hell is the matter with me!?!”

She patted me on the hand with a compassionate look in her eyes. “It’ll be okay, Dad. We’ll get you caught up on the FNAF iceberg.”

Joy. Can’t wait.

I knew a bit of the lore already. The game is centered around jumpscares. The lore has to be uncovered by discovering hidden mini games and it lets you mentally put the puzzle pieces together yourself…or you can read the novels and supplements. The lore is downright horrific. I warned my kids long ago not to get into the lore as it would warp their innocent little minds. Here we sit now, having paid hard-earned money for tickets to a movie centered on the lore. We are all of us fully warped.

The film deals with some of the more horrific aspects with kid gloves to some degree. There was never a time when I found myself utterly disgusted and wanting to leave. It’s clear the filmmakers knew who their audience was and didn’t want to get in trouble with the PTA. Frankly, it was a good movie. I never found myself bored or rolling my eyes. I even found myself genuinely excited, and not merely because the crowd dynamic was rubbing off on me. Nevertheless, just like J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland, strategically filling audience seats with children so the stuffy and overly critical play-goers would realize this is for a certain audience, if you can see this through their eyes, you too can enjoy this as much as they or, at the very least, enjoy them enjoying something… which can be just as fun.

When the end credits started to roll and that song that everyone recognized began to play we danced. We all danced! We sought out our friends new and old and shouted our excitement into each other’s faces. We danced and jumped and “harmped” our way to the restroom and drained the two hours worth of pent up excitement we barely contained in our straining bladders. Even in the restrooms people were “harmping” the ominous tune back and forth. Our friends walked us to our car, and when we realized we weren’t parked anywhere near them, we walked them to their car and back again, just to prolong the camaraderie.

To be a pre-teen weirdo! Unfettered by the true terrors and cares of this world, to be United by a pack of haunted murderous animatronics in a defunct pizza parlor.

Yes, that’s what it’s about. It was also a ton of fun. If you choose to see it, I highly recommend seeing it alongside a gaggle of pre-teen lunatics. It’s the best way.

On the way home the kids sang my praises. No extensive childhood trauma therapy needed for us!

Just imagine the chills that exhilarated them both when I reminded them I used to work security and now I work in a pizza parlor. Mwahahahahaha!