Spoiler Warning for Willy”s Wonderland and Five Nights at Freddy’s

If you were hoping for a Five Nights at Freddy’s (aka FNAF) movie then your not in luck.  Well if you squeeze your eyes shut, turn your head a bit, and then totally distort your senses you may think Willy’s Wonderland is sufficient substitute to a FNAF movie.

FNAF is a popular video game series originating in 2014 by video game developer Scott Cawthone. FNAF is about a security guard hired to observe the cameras and make sure everything is in order in a pizza restaurant called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. Yet the animatronic used in the restaurant for entertainment have the ability to come alive.  As a result, they move around throughout midnight to six a.m. and try to kill the person hired.

Willy’s Wonderland, although according to Slate.com is not related to the FNAF franchise has the same premise except Nicolas Cage is a janitor (he isn’t known as anything else in the movie). Also in Willy’s Wonderland the establishment is known to the whole town as a deadly place, so the town is considered abandoned due to people obviously not wanting to be around it. However in FNAF there are newsletters in the restaurant taking about Freddy’s Fazbear’s Pizzeria being shut down, but there is never a reason stated why.  After playing the game you had to theorize why (and assume it was from killing people during the night). Also there are many scenes which prove that the animatronics in Willy’s Wonderland come alive and hurt people in the day.

The movie follows the janitor at Willy’s paying the towing company of the town for repairing his broken-down car. The latter man explains to the janitor that he has to clean the place with the tip of, “Make sure to take breaks.” He doesn’t realize at first what is happening and when he does he still takes that phrase very seriously.

A group of teens living in the town see this happen and want to rescue him before they set fire to the place. One girl named Liv is very adamant on destroying the place because she survived while her parents were killed in the restaurant. She accidentally falls from the crumbling roof into the place and her friends hesitantly join in. While Liv is fighting the chameleon animatronic, the janitor goes to help her then his alarm on his watch goes off signaling that his break will commence. He just leaves her to potentially die (it doesn’t look like a winning battle for Liv). That was the only part that made me chuckle. The janitor goes to the break room and drinks his grape soda can (this is shown up close to make you think that it will be an important, but of course it’s not) and play the pin ball machine available.

To give credit, where credit is due there are some points of creative work. The animatronics are some unique animals from Scott Cawthone’s creations. However you can not look at the ballerina and her scenes and tell me that’s not Ballora from FNAF Sister Location. The designs aren’t similar, but I still was reminded of Ballora (What makes it worse is they are both ballerinas.  There was a video on Youtube referring to the one in Willy’s Wonderland as a ballerina and it comes up when you search ballerina on Google.) Ballora moves in a way like a spider; the ballerina does the same thing when she is killing a kid. The janitor is mute, but that could be copying the way the Night Guard didn’t say anything either.

If you don’t like gore or fight scenes this is the movie for you.  The Janitor was unbelievably strong to the point where he easily beats the animatronics which leaves some for some strange thoughts and theories.

Some elements of the story are unique though. The Night Guards (there is a different one each game) would always go to the place willingly because a job is a job I guess. The janitor had his story (it’s explained in the fourth paragraph). Also the sheriff of the town (or someone else this was about an hour into a 90 minute movie for I was already gone with ennui) explains that there was a blood ritual thing done by the staff of Willy’s Wonderland and their souls were placed into the animatronics. The sheriff had made a deal with the animatronics to bring in people to sacrifice in exchange of not going on murderous rampages in the town. I’m pretty sure they were killing families before that. On the contrary with FNAF, a staff member of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria was killing children and eventually his soul went into an animatronic each, but their reason (other than the murderer) wasn’t really out of bloodlust. As said by Quora.com, the security system in the animatronics identified the Night Guard as a criminal due to their facial recognition features being hijacked by someone.

There was a scene where Liv is fighting either the turtle or alligator and she tries to shoot him however he says something like, (in Spanish) “Hey what’s up? I took the batteries from your gun.”  Last time I checked guns do not have batteries. It is assumed that Liv understands Spanish based on her corresponding movements with the animatronic’s monologue. Would it be hysterical if Liv didn’t understand Spanish and just screamed, “I don’t know what the you’re saying,” and then threw the gun at him or something.

Back to FNAF, there is a character called Balloon Boy in the second game who guess what steals the batteries from your flashlight, so it is very hard to believe the director, when he said he took no inspiration from FNAF. Believe it or not in a “horror” movie like this has a sex scene. It was not just a small shot either; it lasted for about two minutes, right before they get killed by one of the animatronics. It could be the best way to die or the worse way to die depending on how you look at it.

To encapsulate the idea, I don’t recommend Willy’s Wonderland.  If it is intended to be a FNAF ripoff or not, the movie doesn’t do itself justice.