By KEN MICHAELS

Starring Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail and Piper Rubio
Directed by Emma Tammi
Written by Scott Cawthon, Seth Cuddeback and Emma Tammi
Universal/Blumhouse

Part of the problem with the film version of FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S is right there in the title. The original video game it’s based on became a big, enduring success because it gave you the genuine sense of being trapped in the nightmare realm of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, unable to escape the monsters that its animatronic mascots have become. Translating it into a screen narrative means that the five nights have to be separated by days, and thus we keep getting pulled out of the dark, threatening Fazbear’s, interrupting the mood. What goes on during those sunlit hours–and eventually after dark–also becomes convoluted to the point where it distracts from what we’re supposed to be scared by.

The FIVE NIGHTS movie creative team has gone through quite a bit of turnaround over the past decade, as hinted at by “Screen Story” credits for TRAGEDY GIRLS director Tyler MacIntyre and co-writer Chris Lee Hill. Filmmakers attached to the project over the years have also included GREMLINS scripter Chris Columbus and MONSTER HOUSE helmer Gil Kenan, both appropriate choices for a flick about kids’ stuff gone bad. The ultimate choice was Emma Tammi, who made an attention-grabbing debut with the eerie period chiller THE WIND, and certainly brings a strong command of atmosphere to FIVE NIGHTS. Yet the script she wrote with Seth Cuddeback and game creator Scott Cawthon (who was also a producer on the film) seems torn between the latter’s determination to stay faithful to his baby and Tammi’s interest in psychological trauma.

After an opening setpiece involving a death device rife with grinding, clattering gears in a dank room that might have you thinking you walked into SAW X by mistake–until the movie cuts away before things get too gruesome–we’re introduced to Mike (Josh Hutcherson). He’s a perpetual screwup still haunted by the day when, at age 12, he helplessly witnessed the abduction of his younger brother in broad daylight. Fired from a mall security-guard gig after an unfortunate incident of mistaken identity, Mike is desperate for work so he doesn’t lose custody of his 10-year-old sister Abby (Piper Rubio) to their harpy of an aunt (Mary Stuart Masterson). Thus he has no choice when his career counselor (a weirdly mannered turn by Matthew Lillard, in what amounts to an extended cameo) offers him a night watchman job at the long-shuttered Freddy Fazbear’s.

When Mike goes in for his first night at the derelict eatery and meets its animatronic, anthropomorphic denizens, FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S casts a promising initial spell. Production designer Marc Fisichella has gotten the environment just right, and the team at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop bring Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy to three-dimensional “life” most convincingly–and practically, with a refreshing lack of CGI. The filmmakers even come up with a plausible reason to bring some interlopers into Fazbear’s so that the creatures can do more than just lurk about ominously, and do some serious human damage. As in that prologue, though, the carnage is kept restrained to PG-13 levels.

And as the movie goes on, it keeps sidelining what should be its key scaremakers in favor of Mike’s psychological distress. Every night at Freddy’s, he goes to sleep on the job so that he can explore his perpetual nightmares of his brother’s snatching for clues to the culprit’s identity. These dream sequences, populated by a bunch of other enigmatic kids, become repetitive after a while, and since it becomes obvious early on that Mike’s tragic history is tied to his current place of employment, you wish the movie would get on with it, instead of bogging down in labored exposition provided by a friendly cop (Elizabeth Lail). Speaking of friendly, once Abby starts accompanying Mike to Fazbear’s, she becomes pals with Freddy and co., and while the charming young Rubio sells the idea that this neglected kid might see them as buddies, having the animatronic beasts do stuff like help her build a fort doesn’t exactly build the fright factor around them.

Indeed, the longer FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S goes on, and the more we learn about what animates the creatures, the less the film seems certain about whether we’re supposed to be scared of them or not. The creepy ambience established by Tammi and co. dissipates as what goes on within it loses its grip, and the overly dense plotting takes precedence over giving the audience what they really came to see. There are lots of Easter eggs dropped along the way that the game’s many die-hard fans will appreciate, but those looking to replicate the freaky experience of playing it–and the uninitiated simply seeking a frightening good time–will likely find that this is a few nights too many.