There are a few things that separate PG-13 movies and R movies, specifically when it comes to the horror genre. Movies rated R, for instance, usually have excessive blood or gore. There is also less cursing in PG-13 movies, obviously, because nobody under the age of 13 has ever heard a curse word before so we have just been keeping that up. It’s not that bad when horror movies get the PG-13 rating, but it also means that your theater might be filled with a bunch of teens with Twizzler hands pulling pranks for TikTok. It’s a risk so many have to take.
Even though Five Nights At Freddy’s is technically a horror movie (because it stars Matthew Lillard and every movie he is in counts as a horror movie by default), it’s also based on a children’s game, so you can expect that the youngsters are going to come out for this. Director Emma Tammi even says that she supports the rating.
“We’re really happy with how the PG-13 tone landed; it felt like the right fit for this particular film,” the director explained. “We’re sticking by it,” Tammi told PEOPLE that while they knew some fans would request a gore-filled (or scarier) version of the movie, that wasn’t the type of film they wanted.
The movie follows Josh Hutcherson as a young security guard at an abandoned arcade center where the animatronics become murdered after dark. Like Gremlins but made out of scrap metal.
Tammi added, “[We] wanted to be inclusive of the younger audiences and knew we were going to hit the PG 13 rating, but for the audience that also wanted that level of violence, if you will, or at least insinuation of violence, we really wanted to still include elements that felt dark.” Anything with animatronics is inherently dark so they succeeded in that.
This also means that they can eventually release an unrated cut that involves Freddy’s enemy– local wise guy and convicted con man Charles Entertainment Cheese.
Five Nights At Freddy’s is currently in theaters and streaming on Peacock.
