I took my 10yo son to see 'Five Nights at Freddy's' against my wife's wishes

The deal was to keep it a secret and now the nightmares have kicked in. Would you let a child under 15 watch it? 

My youngest son, *Lucas who is 10 loves Five Nights at Freddy’s and is really obsessed with the series. His elder brother, *Sam, who is 14 used to play the video game religiously and then began reading the books too.

This, my wife *Eliza, was particularly pleased about because despite her not being a fan of the horror themes and violence, she appreciated that it encouraged Sam to read because he’d been quite reluctant prior to that.

When Sam moved on from playing the game and the books, mid-last year, Lucas found them on the bookshelf and began to read them. Eliza wasn’t overly impressed with this given he was only 9 at the time but like, Sam, she was happy to encourage a previously disinterested reader into actually reading.

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Five Nights at Freddy's. Image: Supplied

Five Nights at Freddy's at the movies

Since then, he has been obsessed with the characters, and has pleaded to play the video game and when the movie was announced, he started to ask to see it as soon as it came out as well.

Eliza very firmly said no every time this question was asked and encouraged me to do the same. And I did, for the months leading up to the film’s release but once it actually premiered and Lucas’s friends were allowed to go and see it with their family and raved about it at school, well I gave in.

My deal with Lucas was, that as long as he kept it a secret, we could see the movie. Obviously, he agreed and as soon as feasibly possible we were sitting in the local cinema, popcorn in hand watching the M-rated horror movie together.

The film, which is for people who aren’t familiar, is based on the general premise of the video game series. It follows a night watchman who is essentially terrorised by a variety of evil animatronics at a pizza restaurant.

The characters, which Lucas particularly loves and what I was familiar with before we saw the film, are pretty creepy in their own right; a sinister combination of decaying kid’s stuffed toys including a teddy bear, a bunny and a rabbit. But it was the level of violence that was shown in the film that left me, and it turns out, Lucas too, freaked out.

Among some of the most full-on scenes was a character being chomped in half, body parts being slashed, and even gory corpses being featured in the background. There are also lots of jump scares, screaming and well, death- a lot more than I had anticipated.

Do you think Five Nights at Freddy's is appropriate for kids? Image: Supplied

"I didn't realise how intense it would be"

While I can't say I had no idea that a horror film that is based on a violent game and books would be like this, I just hadn’t realised how intense it would be. But it was the later impact on Lucas that had the most problematic consequence: nightmares.

From the very night after we saw the film they began. He came into our room clearly shaken, explaining he had a nightmare, “where someone was trying to get him.” The next day he told me that the ‘someone’ was one of the characters from the film.

I tried to talk to him about it and alleviate his concerns, I hoped that it would be a one-off and just a direct response to seeing it that day but consistently since, the same thing has happened.

When I have spoken to him about it further, he remains adamant that even though the nightmares feature elements of the film, it has nothing to do with seeing it that he is having them and while he continues to read the books and remains obsessed with the characters, I do wonder how much of that is to fit in with his mates rather than because he is actually enjoying any of it now.

I am also very worried that I am going to have to come clean to Eliza and tell her that I took Lucas to see it. I know she will be absolutely enraged at the fact and I will be in the bad books for a long time to come but I also know that as a parent, if Lucas remains affected, I am probably going to have to bite the bullet and in doing so,  probably end up wishing I was one of the victims of the evil animatronics, I feel as if that outcome may be less painful.

Originally published as I took my 10yo son to see 'Five Nights at Freddy's' against my wife's wishes