Secrets Unveiled: Five Nights At Freddy's Movie Discards R-Rating for Ingenious Creative Choices
Five Nights At Freddy's director discusses the decision to forgo an R-rating, emphasizing the creative strategies employed to create a terrifying experience without relying on gore
Summary
The Five Nights at Freddy's movie aimed for a PG-13 rating to include a younger audience and used creative techniques to depict kills without showing gore.
The fans of the game find the lighter rating more acceptable because it remains faithful to the source material's absence of on-screen violence.
However, despite being rated PG-13, the movie still manages to be terrifying by incorporating effective jump scares and creative filmmaking. This is evident in other successful horror franchises that also have similar ratings.
Co-writer/director Emma Tammi discusses the decision to give the Five Nights at Freddy's movie a PG-13 rating. Tammi explains that despite the presence of violent animatronics, the creative team purposely avoided an R-rating in order to include a younger audience. She goes on to describe the various creative approaches used to maintain a high body count while still catering to a wider demographic. Read Tammi's explanation below from her interview with Inverse ahead of the film's release.
We made every effort to push the boundaries while still maintaining a PG-13 rating for
How Five Nights At Freddy's Can Terrify Without Gore
. This meant that the killings had to be carried out in a specific manner. While it is often enjoyable to witness the explicit violence and gore in slasher films, it was equally satisfying to come up with inventive ways to depict these moments without revealing all the graphic details. In certain instances, we relied on shadows, silhouettes, and sound design to create a powerful impact without showcasing any blood and guts. I thoroughly enjoyed this approach and truly appreciated the opportunity to cater to the younger audience of FNAF without excluding them.
The news of Five Nights at Freddy's receiving a PG-13 rating was met with mixed reactions from horror enthusiasts who yearned for Freddy Fazbear and his gang to unleash a gory frenzy. Yet, those acquainted with the games have embraced the lighter rating, recognizing its fidelity to the original material's absence of explicit violence.
Cawthon was mainly responsible for producing the original game, which gained viral popularity due to its clever use of jump scares to frighten players. The game involved different animatronic characters racing towards the Freddy's Pizzeria security room to capture the player character and stuff them into a suit. The sudden appearance of these animatronics in different camera angles and their faces peeking through windows provided shocking and amusing scares, which became popular among YouTube gamers who would share videos of themselves playing the game. The tension was further heightened by the limited power available for checking the cameras and closing the security doors to keep the animatronics away.
Despite the focus on the body count in the marketing for the Five Nights at Freddy's movie, staying true to faithfully adapting the games could still make it equally terrifying with a PG-13 rating as it would with an R rating. The Insidious franchise, also produced by Blumhouse, has consistently demonstrated how creative filmmaking and well-executed jump scares can be achieved with a PG-13 rating across its five installments. Furthermore, early box office projections indicate that the movie is on track to surpass both The Exorcist: Believer and Saw X, proving that the lighter rating has not affected audience anticipation.
