Kevin Foster, Jess Weiss and Jade Kindar-Martin in Five Nights at Freddy’s [© Universal Pictures]

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S
Directed by Emma Tammi
Certificate: 15
☆☆☆

THIS shambolic piece of storytelling looks great and enjoys strong performances – but it is a jumble of plots and leads, none of which makes much sense. As a horror, it’s not scary, but rather sinister.

And for a genre where anything goes, the tale, adapted from a popular computer game, fails to make the most of the free-for-all world the story inhabits.

Five Nights as a computer game has a massive following, made more popular by the fact footage of people playing the game and jumping out of their skins at scare moments went viral.

This film adaptation is too multi-layered to work, has too many strands that don’t fit together and are not explored.

A giant rabbit and other animatronic creatures with evil intent are genuinely creepy, but the Scooby-Doo back story is so convoluted and complicated as to leave the viewer fundamentally not bothered.

Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is the hard-working but deadbeat singleton who has custody over his little sister Abby (Piper Rubio).

His evil aunt (Mary Stuart Masterson) wants to take her away from him – something neither siblings are keen on, and as we discover as Mike’s back story unravels, he has a very sincere reason relating to childhood trauma as to why he wants to keep a special hold on his sister.

After being fired from a job as a security guard on a shopping mall, he is given a role as nightwatchman at a semi-derelict out-of-town pitstop, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.

Think of a long-abandoned TGI Fridays on the North Circular and you get the vibe.

Of course, there is something sinister about the robotic animals, who once put on shows for children at the defunct pizza and soft play establishment. We learn that the place closed after a spate of child abductions, which taps into Mike’s personal tragedy.

Through a series of flashbacks, we discover Mike is trying to recall as much as he can about the man he witnessed abducting his little brother. Unwittingly, his new job may hold the key.

There is something brilliantly rust belt about the set design and the premise of this film, and it enjoys good performances from Hutcherson and Masterson, who gives it the full pantomime villain.

This is a run-down USA where evil haunts shopping malls and Friday night eateries, the malevolent spirit of a declining nation manifesting itself in horrible things happening in horrible places.