The ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s‘ movie, based on the incredibly popular video games series of the same name, now has a director. Gil Kenan has been brought on to helm the live action adaptation and he will also be co-writing the film along with Tyler Burton Smith. Kenan is no stranger to horror films, having directed the well-received 2006 Halloween movie ‘Monster House’ and the not-so-well-received recent remake of ‘Poltergeist.’

The ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ series takes place at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a family restaurant a la Chuck E. Cheese’s, complete with creepy animatronics. The difference being that at night, the animatronics at Freddy Fazbear’s come to life and try to kill anyone still in the restaurant. Also, years ago a bunch of kids were murdered in the restaurant and another kid had part of his head bitten off by the animatronics during the daytime. You play as the night guard, though your job consists less of guarding the restaurant and more of trying to survive the night.

The first game was released in just August of 2014, and since then it’s had three sequels out, each as popular as the previous. They’re not universally loved, as many people criticize them for overuse of jump scares, so if the movie is anything at all like the game you can expect a lot of jump scares. Lots and lots of jump scares. However, many fans love the game for its creepy atmosphere as well, so hopefully Mr. Kenan will be able to pull that off.

What’s most interesting about the games is that they often get announced suddenly, and then just as suddenly are released weeks before the announced release date. It’s almost as if the release of the game itself is a jump scare. But maybe I’m reading too much into that. The fourth in the series was originally given the subtitle of ‘The Final Chapter,’ a nod to the Friday the 13th series, though that was dropped when the game was released and it’s possible that, like ‘Friday the 13th,’ there will be more ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ games in the future.

What do you think? Have you played the ‘Five Nights’ games? Are they genuinely creepy or just full of cheap jump scares? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Deadline