I love the idea behind the horror video game series Five Nights at Freddy's, a game in which you must try and survive waves of attacks from sentient animatronics at a pizzeria. Seeing Willy's Wonderland having such a similar plot I was interested to check it out, especially considering that the always entertaining Nicolas Cage (Color Out of Space, Mandy) had a starring role in it. I found a movie that was near perfectly suited to me with even its bad choices leading to great moments.
Cage stars as a silent drifter who ends up stranded in a small backwater town in America after his car tyres get wrecked. The local mechanic offers to fix his car up for him, but due to only accepting cash, and no ATMs in the town working, the drifter is unable to pay. The mechanic then offers a solution, should the drifter spend the night cleaning a former family themed restaurant, then his bill would be considered settled. Unknown to the drifter, the condemned building is home to eight homicidal sentient animatronics, he finds himself not only having to clean the place, but in between his frequent breaks, he must battle for his life against the machines. While this is all happening, local teen Liv (Emily Tosta) and her friends, aware of the evil of the building, have decided tonight is the night the curse that lay on the town will be finally ended.
The drifter isn't just a quiet character, he is actually completely silent for the whole ninety minute film, with not even one word of dialogue coming from Cage's crazy character. Much of the humour comes from him, with him having a single minded desire to clean the building even after he discovers the animatronics want him dead. He also keeps in mind the owner's advice that he should take frequent breaks, even breaking things off mid-combat in order to return to the break room, drink some of his beloved energy drink and try and get a high score on the pinball table that is located there. Some of the best scenes of the movie have him playing pinball, with the camera in the position of the pinball table, looking up at the drifter as he plays, dances, and genuinely appears to have a great time. He does a lot with his measured facial expressions, in a way that means other characters talk around him without it coming across as odd. The drive to clean the restaurant as instructed was so amusing to me, with it not clear if the character was insanely dense (not realising he had been set up to be a sacrifice for the animatronics), or if he was just impossibly cool, well aware of his capability to combat the threat he faces nonchalantly.
The meat of the movie is the fight sequences involving the various animal themed robots. It is here again where Cage is just delightful, effortlessly defeating each animatronic in fun, well choreographed sequences. The almost bored ease with which he defeats each of the things never failed to entertain. The animatronics had a great design to them, from the ostrich to the crocodile and chameleon, the design of the dilapidated robotic monsters was spot on.
I would have been happy if the whole movie had just been Cage on his own battling these, but the decision was made to introduce a group of disposable teens around the midway point. A lot of these characters felt like cannon-fodder, with no real personality to them, but at least they gave the movie a bodycount, even if their actions were often ridiculously stupid. It leads to some very bloody kills, such as someone getting sliced in half horizontally, and a fornicating couple being chomped to death. Again the humour comes to the forefront, the drifter is happy to assist these teens, yet as soon as his break time alarm goes off he abandons whatever he is doing to go play some pinball! This leading to at least a few extra deaths. The addition of talking non-hostile characters also gave the opportunity for a whole heap of exposition about the doomed history of the restaurant, and why the locals trick drifters into staying at the place. Not that the drifter cares, cleaning away as he is being told all this, without even reacting.
Apparently there is an actual Five Nights at Freddy's movie being made, but with Willy's Wonderland existing already I can't see that achieving more than this very fun film did. Cage was on top form here, really stealing the show with his weird character. Add in great looking effects, a great soundtrack, and a fun flow and there really wasn't much to dislike here. Willy's Wonderland can currently be streamed on Amazon Prime Video.
SCORE:
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