Five Nights at Freddy’s is a success, but critically it can’t compare to the weekend’s other new horror movie, Suitable Flesh. Five Nights at Freddy’s, which is based on the video game franchise of the same name, is a huge success at the box office, earning the highest-grossing opening weekend for any movie from Blumhouse Productions, among other records. However, it has been panned by critics, who have given it a dismal 29% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Despite the mind-boggling Five Nights at Freddy’s box office, Suitable Flesh has been much better received on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie, which opened on the same day as Freddy‘s, currently holds an 83% score aggregated from 58 different reviews. This is enough to make it Certified Fresh, a distinction that Freddy’s can’t hope to match on the critical front.
Suitable Flesh Assembles a Dream Team of Horror Movie Veterans
While the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie comes from an established video game IP that has been popular in recent years, Suitable Flesh is considerably more old school. The movie, which follows a psychiatrist’s obsessive connection with a patient who is suffering under a supernatural curse, draws its inspiration from the 1937 H.P. Lovecraft short story “The Thing on the Doorstep.” To match this more classical approach, the movie has assembled a raft of horror veterans both in front of and behind the camera.
For instance, one of the leads of the movie is Barbara Crampton, who has plenty of H.P. Lovecraft experience from previous horror projects including Re-Animator, From Beyond, and Castle Freak. However, the cast boasts quite a few other horror veterans including Judah Lewis (The Babysitter), Bruce Davison (Willard), and Johnathon Schaech (Prom Night, Quarantine). They are all brought together under the auspices of director Joe Lynch, who is known for the horror-related projects Wrong Turn 2: Dead End and Holliston, among many others.
While the Five Nights at Freddy’s cast does boast Scream veteran Matthew Lillard and You star Elizabeth Lail in major roles, Suitable Flesh is more designed to appeal to the classic horror fan. This may be one reason that the movie has been better received by critics. It remains to be seen how the latter movie performs in its smaller theatrical run, but this Certified Fresh score could help boost its prospects as Halloween approaches.
