The wait is nearing its conclusion as Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions’ Five Nights at Freddy’s hits theaters this Friday. Roughly half a decade and the live-action adaptation is one players have been painfully patient to see release. It was early in 2023 that the production officially kicked off filming with new director Emma Tammi.
Additionally, many were excited to learn the casting would also be supported with Josh Hutchinson (The Beekeeper, Hunger Games) and Matthew Lillard (Scream, Scooby-Doo) as they play large roles in the video game adaptation film. What left many to question was how much is the film to reveal for the kills of the picture. Understanding that animatronics are responsible for the murders could lead to some gruesome scenes.
Well, that isn’t the case for this movie. According to Forbes, an interview with Emma Tammi reveals there is no R-Rated cut to go full-psycho revealing the kills in the film. The Five Nights at Freddy’s film has and always been intended for its PF-13 rating.
We knew that some of the fan base would want an R-rated version of this film. On the one level, we wanted to be inclusive of the younger audiences and knew we were going to hit the PG 13 rating, but for the audience that also wanted that level of violence, if you will, or at least insinuation of violence, we really wanted to still include elements that felt dark.
Of course, there are a lot of dark elements to see in the lore, but in terms of some of the kills and everything, it was just all execution dependent. We really wanted to ensure that we were showing the right amount and doing creative things to insinuate what was happening or show what was happening without fully seeing it to still fit in that PG-13 category.
“I would say not to expect an R-rated version on this one. We’re really happy with how the PG-13 tone landed; it felt like the right fit for this particular film. We’re sticking by it.” Even more, Tammi speaking to Inverse also elaborated on the effort to push the PG-13 rating to fit some of the scenes and experiment with the restrictions. “We were trying to push it as far as we could while still retaining that PG-13 rating. That meant the kills needed to be executed in a certain way.
“And while it is so fun in many slasher films to see all the guts and the gore, it is also really fun to figure out creative ways to show these moments without showing all the details. In some cases, we leaned into shadows and silhouettes and sound design to really feel the moment in an impactful way without showing any gore. So that is something that I had a lot of fun doing, and actually really appreciated that we were taking the PG-13 approach for this because there’s such a younger audience for FNAF, and we didn’t want to exclude them.”
What surprises you most about Five Nights at Freddy’s embracing its PG-13 rating?
Five Nights at Freddy’s arrives to theaters on October 27, 2023.
