The new nostalgia of Five Nights at Freddy’s

Five Nights at Freddy’s Part 2, the sequel to the initial hit, is about to take down Zootopia 2 at the box office this weekend. If you look at the Rotten Tomatoes website, you’d never expect that to happen. Right now it’s sitting at one of the lowest critic scores we’ve ever seen ..just 12%. That’s it. That means the overwhelming majority of movie critics basically despise this film and think it’s a waste of time to watch and maybe even a waste of time to make.

But this is a tale of two cities and two audiences. While critics hate it, people in general love it, with an 89% audience score from 500+ verified ratings. The original movie made about $297 million on a $20 million budget, and it’s expected that this sequel might actually do even better.

Is it going to be Oscar-worthy material? Probably not. It might not even be the best movie you’ve ever seen. But it’s doing something critics haven’t really tapped into.

For a long time, 80s and 90s nostalgia reigned supreme. That era is fading. People now can’t always relate to a time and place that’s long gone, but they can relate to a time when they were playing this game.. or when they were parents of kids who were playing it in the mid-2000s. That’s what we have here: an homage to new nostalgia, something different and unique to this generation of people growing up now, and to Millennials who are older and had kids who downloaded this game. Parents and kids alike enjoyed playing it.

Remember from in the mid 2000 teens how many Five Nights at Freddy’s–themed birthday parties we saw? That’s the energy showing up at the box office now.

What this really shows is how little critics matter anymore. There was a time when a movie poster could boast a perfect score with critics or a Roger Ebert quote on the back of the VHS and that meant everything. Those days are so far gone they’ve turned to dust. Now it’s word of mouth, social media, instant reviews, and live theater reactions that matter, and that’s what’s happening here.

We haven’t seen Five Nights at Freddy’s Part 2 just yet. We will. And when we do, even if it’s the “worst movie of all time,” guess what?

We will probably enjoy it.