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Film 62 (Goal: 300) of 2024
I've just got done with a film where a father is reincarnated as a snowman and then with his little twig arms, proceeds to protect his son in a snowball fight and that is 10 x better than this. I love Nicolas Cage's willingness to try new interesting concepts and even go against type, but man he gets some absolute garbage.
This FNAF-lite concept is an interesting idea but the execution is so bad. Anyone that tells you it's good or that its so bad, it's good is naive or possible stoned. And even then, I don't believe drugs can rescue this. There's essentially no plot here. Exposition and flashbacks are added to pad out what is already a short film (not that short is a bad thing).
The direction here is really bad. It looks like a student project. The animatronic fights, a key component of the film, are so poorly constructed. There's nothing well put together here. Cage has put out some better films recently. Mandy, Color Out of Space, Renfield, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. All unique, all interesting. This could have added to that list. This is not that.
Willy’s Wonderland wants to be an action, horror, and comedy film, and isn’t particularly adept at any of them. The action is undercut by choppy cuts and a lack of stakes, as is the horror. I’m not one to hold plot holes against a film for the sake of a good time, but this one can’t make up its mind on if the animatronics are apocalyptic killing machines that can only be bargained with or absolute jokes outmatched not only by The Janitor but by a teenager with an empty gun. And laughs are only fleeting.
Unsurprisingly, the highlight is Nicholas Cage, as always delivering exactly what the role needed. It’s almost like a personal challenge, to do an entire movie with no lines and therefore little chance to ham it up. But he gives an odd interiority to the role, as if he’s doing a character piece. He sticks unwaveringly to a schedule abs a deal, even one rigged against him. He’s almost more machine than the deprived beings he’s fighting, but when he plays pinball, that Cageness comes out in bursts, that electric and odd humanity.
If you want to watch Nicholas Cage work and kill an hour and a half, there’s worse ways to do it. But as the titular track says, Willy’s Wonderland is nothing new.
You know what would’ve gone a long way into making this movie not be the shameful embarrassment that it is?
Just a tiny portion of genuine conflict between ANY of the “characters” (read: meat puppets and/or robots possessed with those laughably & vaguely described murder demon robots who worship the devil). Like any actual push and pull between two opposite forces as the natural profession of a story where one side will only win so a conflict becomes useful as the movie gets over the 20 minute milestone, (a point that feels like the 4 hour mark in this instance), and you want your audience to actually care enough to see how things get resolved, you know...?
Or...just hear me out...perhaps just ONE character with a semblance of a backstory that precedes the events of the film’s first act — maybe...?
Look. I know this movie is a rejected script from the FNAF video game(s?), and I know those games were popular for being loosely based on a real business from the late 80’s, (or are still in business if you live in a state like Tennessee...yes, that was a dig at Dollyworld, because I’ve been, and even as a 20 something just trying to laugh at the absurdity of it all, it was profoundly depressingly, haunting, and sickening to see thousands of Southern obese folks in the U.S. throw hundreds of dollars away on what can only be described as pathologically deranged excesses of salt, sugar, and grease-soaked concessions while the employees’ own self-loathing permeated the atmosphere the moment you drove into the unnecessarily large parking lot).
My point being that FNAF, the game, the possible movie (eventually?), or any of its god awful spin-offs like this film & the Banana Splits movie couldn’t be further from the kind of story I’d want to watch a movie about — especially when these hack writers dare to tell me this is supposed to be a “Horror” film, or “Horror Comedy,” whatever.
It’s barely a film, it’s never intentionally funny, and disappointingly it’s never even unintentionally funny. This is a legitimate exercise in testing one’s own mental fortitude; how long can you watch this before you eagerly leap at your phone to eagerly be distracted by literally whatever meaningless notification you’ve just received.
Oh Nic Cage isn’t going to speak the entire film? “What an impressive performance,” (said nobody, ever, about this movie).
If you’re only choices are to watch this film or to watch an 12 hour marathon of “The Masked Singer,” I mean...obviously watch this movie because it’s not 12 hours long. But that’s the nicest thing I can say about it. Willy’s Wonderland: marginally less psychologically tormenting than watching several episodes of “The Masked Singer.” What a high bar this movie cleared.... (not).
Review by filmtoasterVIP 3BlockedParentSpoilers2021-03-25T07:32:18Z
Shockingly awful. There was no reason for this to be as bad as it was. This is another one of those films, like The Banana Splits Movie that uses one of the unused/scrapped scripts thrown out by Scott Cawthon as he works on his Five Nights At Freddy's movie. Studios see some potential in the scripts and just change around the aesthetic to adapt it. Nicolas Cage has a producing credit on this and I don't know why. What a shithead move to not have him speak the entire movie. If they were going for a Man With No Name approach, he should have a couple lines, really killer ones. The idea he says nothing is a comically ridiculous waste. There's no reason for him to be there then. Go Doomslayer if you want the silent killer. Give him a scarf over his mug and cowboy hat, it would complete his look, and then Cage wouldn't require a big check. None of the characters are memorable, recognizable, have any attachment to the story, or warrant the screen time they're given. Characters don't play to any specific strengths or weaknesses. Their names are spoken one or two times, none of them add to the world building or have connections to this restaurant. Any characters that have a chance of redemption are killed on the spot without a second glance, making their place in the script meaningless. Even the sympathetic sheriff groomed by the head sheriff doesn't get his moment to shine, he's unceremoniously killed in a lame, unrealistic situation where somehow an animatronic stowed away in the cop car. The levels of turning your brain off you have to do to even tolerate what's going on are to many to permit. Only one, named Liv, cares about doing the right thing. Neat. She cares about this old, creepy birthday palace why? I don't know. The lore is taken right from FNAF's pages, people possess animatronics to cause havoc, only here, it's serial killers. For what purpose? I have no clue. They only get fed every time the town's folks tricks a passerby to become a night janitor. How often does that happen? It's all just thrown in to one horrible exposition dump as Cage stands there with the same expression he has the whole movie. There's even a second exposition free for all that repeats all the points from the first one, only from the perspective of the townsfolk, and it comes right in the middle of an interesting scene between one of the kids and a suit. When we cut back, the kid is immediately killed. Why does the dude drink that brand of soda and on every break conveniently timed and looped throughout the picture? The only way this story would've been enjoyable is if it was an actual video game, Duke Nukem style. This is the cinematic equivalent of watching someone play Doom, but you don't get to experience the gameplay yourself, it's terrible. It's not even good exploitation. The blood effects are below the grade of a YouTube video, very obvious Kool-Aid mixtures for blood effects that come out of people's mouths. An excuse for violence is a staple of exploitation flicks for sure, but come on, we're far above the lowest tier trash that comes out of the genre. Most others in the medium are far better than this. To call this a slasher movie is insulting to other gore fests. Every scene is a loop. Janitor guy beats the shit out of a suit, he cleans up, takes his break with a soda, stares at the creepy guys on stage, and loop. This happens six times in the runtime; abysmal. It's a joke in itself, shots repeat like the tossing of a soda can in the garbage, like this shit thinks it's clever. If you want that, have some progression. Maybe that pinball game he cleans up, he gets better at and scores a higher score after each time he defeats a suit. No thought put in to anything, no themes. That ties in to the editing. You're not Edgar Wright. Quick cuts and neon lighting is overused now, you aren't interesting and it doesn't even fit the aesthetic of the time or location. Some of the reaction shots are laughable; like Cage will be punching the shit out of a dude, the camera is all wobbling and up close to be intense, then it cuts to a wide static shot of Liv standing there with a dumbfounded reaction on her face, which completely breaks the engagement of the fight, and then it cuts back to that shaking extreme close up of Cage fighting. It's distractedly awkward. The care to environments and visual effects are of a student film. Balloon lights, lighting equipment, and other junk can be seen in a few shots. The camera work is either over produced or television sitcom, most of the time switching in between shots. The setting of Willy's is small and pathetic, like a little store they rented out for the film. One ballpit, a side room for a birthday table, a kitchen where one pinball machine is located, and a very tiny arcade. As for the animatronics, you have to make me believe these were intended to be cute and friendly. The Banana Splits Movie understood this, considering they used actual Hanna Barbera characters so that was their original purpose, but these monstrosities are freaky even in the upbeat commercial. At least try to be subtle with your costume design, or have it so they flick a switch and change appearance to something demonic. It could tie in to the story's core element of Satanism being at the heart of this dandy play place. About the only satisfying scenes are Cage's final music video dancing to the pinball machine and the head sheriff's death by Willy. The score is also decent. Two points for this dreck.