Nic Cage is a silent brute in the chintzy Five Nights At Freddy’s mockbuster Willy’s Wonderland
Film Reviews Mockbuster
Willy’s Wonderland is a jokey elevator pitch in search of a movie. It’s the kind of genre junk—a low-rent, one-gag cartoon slasher—whose supposed gonzo appeal begins and ends with a description of its premise. The logline could have been generated by bot: What if Nicolas Cage, the internet’s favorite Hollywood wild man who never says no to a paycheck, starred in a mockbuster version of Five Nights At Freddy’s? That sounds like a recipe for cheap thrills, emphasis on the cheap. But even Cage, who can usually be counted on to enjoyably ham it up when tending to his side hustle of artless pulp, seems well aware that his name and face on the poster are all that’s really required of him here. Not since Snakes On A Plane has a film devised such a meme-friendly matchmaking scheme of star and scenario, then wrung so little out of it.
Cage has no dialogue in Willy’s Wonderland. Not one word to blurt out in an odd cadence, scream at the top of his lungs, or invest with any special oddball flavor. (Maybe that was the draw of the role—he didn’t have any lines to learn!) His character, referred to only as The Janitor, is what they used to call the strong and silent type: one of those laconic genre-movie badasses too cool for language. When his sports car breaks down in some dusty dead-end town so cut off from the world that they don’t even have internet, he’s rather quickly convinced to work off the repairs by spending the night cleaning an abandoned family fun center. But it’s not long before the nameless lug discovers that he’s been locked inside and that the animatronic occupants may be more mobile—and less family-friendly—than their Chuck E. Cheese counterparts.
That’s more or less the setup of Five Nights At Freddy’s, the indie horror sensation that spawned a whole multimedia franchise. The giddy appeal (and runaway popularity) of the Five Nights games hinges on how helpless they leave the player; they’re cruel, expertly calibrated jump-scare contraptions. Willy’s Wonderland preserves the conceit but dismantles its bump-in-the-dark fun by turning the roving kill-bots, with their cheerful mascot energy and herky-jerky motion, into mere fist fodder for an unflappable action hero. Expressing not even a modicum of surprise, let alone fright, Cage’s nameless bruiser nonchalantly bashes each into a heap of black oil and sparking electronic debris, in repetitive and choppily edited fight sequences set to the blare of generic rawk chords. (The film’s sense of humor is equally primitive, at least to those not tickled by the comedic value of an animatronic turtle in a sombrero yelping “Aye, my balls” in subtitled Spanish as he’s mercilessly clobbered.)
The robots, brought to life mostly via suits, have a certain chintzy charm; they’re like something the VHS schlock merchants at Full Moon might have unleashed in the early ’90s. But they’re never particularly scary, even when tearing through an expendable supporting cast of Riverdale wannabes. Elsewhere, director Kevin Lewis fails to transcend his budgetary limitations; this is an ugly movie, with amateurish lighting and a location that looks more like a half-dressed warehouse than a neglected play center. It’s also blatantly padded out: Even with the introduction of a teenage Scooby gang, multiple flashbacks detailing the evil origins of Willy’s, and cutaways to the town sheriff (an enormously overqualified Beth Grant), the film still has to rely on two extended montages of Cage cleaning and a whopping three of him playing pinball just to limp to nearly 90 minutes. The Hail Mary is a “Freebird” needle drop that probably cost more than the entire production; it marks the first time this writer found himself thinking back fondly on a Rob Zombie movie.
Willy’s Wonderland labors under the presumption that Cage plus killer robots automatically equals B-movie bliss, no matter how poorly staged or indifferently written. Though the actor scores a few chuckles with his wordless irritation—he has a very funny stare-down with the illustrated Willy on the front sign—one has to wonder about the logic of casting this famously unhinged performer as a silent, stoic ass-kicker. Why secure Cage, only to deny him the opportunity for a single gloriously strange line reading? For once, the star has been brought on neither to act nor outrageously overact. He’s here simply to stand around and be Nicolas Cage, conferring an instant cult allure upon a film thirsty for instant cult fandom. That makes him not so different, this time, from the monsters he’s felling: an animatronic version of himself.
25 Comments
Better or worse than the Banana Splits FNAF attempt?
Worse, from the sound of it. At least that movie seemed like it was having fun, rather than vaguely gesturing in the direction of fun going “you’re good, right?”
After watching this movie, I have to agree when the article bluntly states that this is an ugly movie. It’s both true and conflicting. Ok. Nicolas Cage playing silent throughout the whole film caught me off guard and it was still fun to watch him. He was pretty much the only thing I enjoyed. Think of this movie set in the Supernatural Winchester universe. Then the whole ghost possessed animatronic and it’s backstory and idiot characters all fit in. It really did feel like an episode of Supernatural hijacked by Nicolas Cage. His pinball dance to the synthwave Willy song was fun. And even without dialogue he created a character that pretty much answered a question I had for many horror movies. What happens if the would be victim is really just a silent Michael Myers T-800 that all the monsters and spooky forces really wish didn’t get trapped in their territory?If you have a bunch of inbred mutant wrong turn cannibal problem, send in the Janitor. If you got a video tape girl ghost or a house curse in Japan that needs cleaning, send in the Janitor. If Jamie Lee Curtis really isn’t in the mood for Michael, then send in the Janitor. If Nicolas Cage’s evil insanity manifests into physical form, then send in the Janitor. Sadly though, this movie is only fun to watch if it’s free and if you just skip the scenes that don’t have Cage in it.
Your review piqued my interest and so I gave this a chance last night. It’s the kind of movie I would have rented in 1991 solely bc of the box and the Supernatural comparison was spot on. I throughly enjoyed it and am now a solid fan of Nic Cage pinball eroticism.
A FNAF adaptation is inherently a doomed proposition, if you ask me. I know it’s becomes oversaturated or cringe or whatever, but FNAF really works, and it works because it’s a video game. YOU are in this position, YOU are helpless, YOU have to juggle video screens and doors and energy levels so that animatronics don’t pop out and scream in YOUR face. It’s the closest a game’s come to making me feel like I’m in a nightmare, and it’s completely deflated once Nicolas Cage comes in to give ‘em what for.
If you approached it similar to the best aspects of the Puppet Master films, that might work.
eh, it’s an inherently scary situation and the conceit of having to actually leave and come back for 5 nights could be played for some serious psychological fun. if sam raimi from 1992 directed this it would be amazing.
“When his sports car breaks down in some dusty dead-end town so cut off from the world that they don’t even have internet, he’s rather quickly convinced to work off the repairs by spending the night cleaning an abandoned family fun center.”It sounds like this movie squandered a giant, “JCVD” style opportunity to play with why Cage takes these kinds of shitty roles in the first place.
I want him to be in some good movies again and stop being in on the joke of him being weird.
Color Out of Space was legit, though he is also full-Cage in that one.
I know we’re in a Nicolas Cage renaissance, but I haven’t liked any of the movies that he has been in these past few years, not even Color Out of Space. I love his camp level though.
we’re in a renaissance of liking him, he’s not necessarily doing many more good movies than usual.i think the last movie i genuinely liked him in was bad lieutenant.
I found Mandy to be a real endurance test. A beautiful, well made endurance test, but that doesn’t make it much more fun.
I still haven’t seen ‘Mandy’. Is that still worth seeing?
the person below summed it nicely as a beautiful endurance test.
What about Into The Spider-Verse?
oh man, my bad! I did love that!!!
I wish I’d seen this review before watching it, others I read suggested it would be fun, but it’s actually surprisingly boring, it wastes Cage and does nothing fun with its concept at all.
Man, this is really disappointing. I was looking forward to renting this with the 13 year old.
Since FNAF is essentially just one scene from Aliens stretched out to franchise length, I guess we can rewatch that instead.
Should’ve cast Uhm Jung Hwa as Nicolas Cage brah.
Are these FNAF “mockbusters” or are a bunch of studios just churning out movies based on the various rejected FNAF scripts?
He doesn’t talk? At all? Even when he’s interacting with other non-robot actual human actors who I assume talk to him. So… does this whole scene just consist of him staring way way too intensely at these teenagers? Is that why they look so confused?
fYes. The scene literally is him staring intently at the teens while they talk to him. He doesn’t say one word. He does yell once, while fighting. So, technically, he says AHHHHHH!!!! in the film. When this happens, I assumed it was to fulfill some sort of SAG thing where he actually has his voice on the soundtrack.
If Cage was his character in Mandy and Beth Grant was her’s in Sordid Lives plus killer puppets then maybe..
How has Nic Cage not been cast in a Marvel movie yet?!?!