Willy's Wonderland Review (Film, 2021)
content warning: blood, gore, violence against women, violence against children, death by suicide, sexual content
A man gets stranded in a rural town after running over a police spike trap. The mechanic doesn’t take credit, but he is willing to barter. If the man can work through the night at the abandoned Willy’s Wonderland animatronic restaurant, his car will be fixed for free. Too bad the restaurant shut down due to the murders allegedly caused by the animatronics themselves.
If this sounds like an unlicensed Five Nights at Freddy’s story, it is. Nicolas Cage wanted to make the licensed film, couldn’t get the rights, and used his production skills to get Willy’s Wonderland made. It’s not coincidence; it’s intention. He’s even playing a character who doesn’t speak called The Janitor. The film is exactly what you think it is and that’s not a bad thing.
A monster movie like this is only as good as the creature design. The animatronics at Willy’s look incredible. There are two versions of each character to really set the mood. You’re introduced with the pristine original animatronics used in advertising. They’re warm, friendly creatures children would love to visit. Then you see what they look like now. The bodies are warped, with fur, skin, and clothing slipping off the armature and covered in dust and grime.
They move really well, too. The perfect versions sing and dance like you’d expect them too: happy little loops of friendly movements. The versions in the story are far more intimidating. They move in unnatural patterns enhanced with CGI. Willy’s Wonderland leans into the game-like CGI from the start, layering in very cartoonish looking smoke, blood, dirt, and gore to set the audience up for the impossible absurdity of the murderous robots.
The cast is in on it, too. Every character is intentionally over the top and unrealistic. This is acting you’d see in a FMV (full motion video) game from the 90s. The voices and physical movements are exaggerated to create clear, recognizable images. If you’re bad, you’re terrible; if you’re scared, you’re hysterical. There’s no half-stepping here.
Nicolas Cage gives an impressive physical performance in the film. His particular talent has always been creating a fully realized character with every inch of his body. He can tell you everything you need to know about his character without a word of dialogue; in this film, he has to. Cage’s Janitor is a video game protagonist come to life. You’re supposed to be able to see yourself in his challenges and he succeeds.
Less successful is the ensemble cast of teenagers. They have broad stock types to play with but perhaps aren’t experienced enough to really pull them off. These meddling teenagers are there to increase the body count in a monster movie/slasher hybrid and collectively don’t leave much of an impression beyond their deaths. For most of them, their only identifiable trait is wanting to burn the building to the ground.
The exception is Emily Tosta as Liv. She matches Cage’s energy well and finds more layers in her character. She becomes the unwilling narrator of the story, providing exposition as necessary to help the Janitor understand what he really got himself into. Her expressions are great and her physicality in the action sequences is powerful and natural.
You’re watching Willy’s Wonderland for one reason: seeing the Five Nights at Freddy’s film. It succeeds at that. The screenplay by G.O. Parsons hits all the same beats as the horror game franchise on a slight angle. Émoi’s work as composer, songwriter, and voice actor for Willy the Weasel brings the whole thing to life. The entire production design and set dressing team do incredible work creating clean, dirty, and bloody versions of the cursed restaurant. The film looks and sounds great, hitting all the scares you’d expect.
Willy’s Wonderland accomplishes what it sets out to do. It is a campy slasher film where the bad guy is a group of eight possessed animatronic figures at an abandoned children’s restaurant. There is a target audience for this kind of film and they should be pretty happy with this.
I actually feel bad for whoever inevitably makes the actual Five Nights at Freddy’s film. That will be compared to Willy’s Wonderland and I’m not convinced the novelty of seeing those exact characters onscreen in the official story will be enough to rise above this standard.
Willy’s Wonderland is streaming on Hulu Plus and available to rent or buy on all digital platforms.
