https://www.cybersport.ru/other/articles/krovavaya-parodiya-na-five-night-s-at-freddy-s-obzor-filma-strana-chudes-villi-s-nikolasom-keidzhem

At the level of the plot, everything painfully resembles the adaptation of the cult Five Nights at Freddy’s, an indie horror series that made some noise in the mid-2010s. There, let me remind you, you had to play for the night watchman, who kept order in Freddie’s Pizzeria: animatronics, calm during the day, were furious at night and attacked people. The watchman had to watch them closely and try to stay alive for five nights. To do this, of course, was not easy, and the creepy dolls quietly moving along the dark corridors frightened in earnest and remained in the memory of many for a long time.

Willie’s Wonderland, however, ends up taking a completely different path and becomes more of a parody of FNAF. There is only one night here, the animatronics are similar in general terms, but differ from their “prototypes” in details, and most importantly, the role of the janitor (in the credits, by the way, he is called just that) went to the hero of Cage. And as it soon becomes clear, it was not the janitor who was locked in the restaurant with living dolls, but they were locked with him.

You can understand that the situation is radically different from what we saw in the games from the first skirmish: Cage does not hesitate to beat the once cute mechanical animals with maximum cruelty, readily pulling out their filling with his bare hands and occasionally helping himself with improvised means like a mop handle or a china urinal. In between grotesque violence, head-banging and other self-mutilation against members of the plastic lifeform, the janitor regularly rinses off the splashed oil and changes his signature Willy’s Wonderland T-shirts – he still has to keep order.

Instead of horror, the picture turns into a pitch-black comedy – which, however, is read literally from the first minutes. The opening scene shows less brutal characters falling prey to animatronics, and the cheapness of shooting and effects is evident throughout. And we are clearly not talking about saving the budget (although this, most likely, also takes place), but about stylization. Deliberately ill-made violence, almost parodic cruelty towards dolls – which, unlike FNAF, are completely incapable of intimidation with seemingly similar external attributes – and many frankly cheap stylistic tricks like regular quick approach emphasize that the main task of the film is make everything as bad as possible. Just enough to be good.

Willy’s Wonderland is a parody of the animatronic horror series and a homage to exploitative cinema at the same time. Albeit in a much more “light” version than the ancestors from the 1960s and 1970s, who sought excessive violence and demonstration of everything that was forbidden. It is worth remembering Herschel Gordon Lewis with his talking “Bloody Strippers” or “Blood Wizard” in order to understand exactly what is being said at the level of titles.

If Cage is increasingly being puffed for violence in the frame, then teenagers headed by Liv Hawthorne (Emily Tosta) are shooting back for the “ban”. Even at the beginning of the film, she can be seen trying to set fire to the ill-fated establishment, and later she will go with a group of friends to rescue Cage and a full-fledged war with animatronics. Of course, the prepared plan will go downhill and most of the stereotypical characters will begin to die one after another – as it should be in a genre film. Here the second layer of violence and “forbidden” is revealed, when the place of black engine oil is taken by normal red blood, albeit no less sham.

The plot, as expected, is needed only for show: it is responsible for the madness and jokes on the screen of varying degrees of success. By the way, it is worth noting separately that for the entire film, Cage does not utter a word: the actor has long admitted that he dreamed of playing a horror movie where he would not have to speak. So all he does here is looks stylish, puts on glasses no less stylishly, mends wounds with reinforced tape and beats up huge dolls with maximum cruelty. Of course, we shouldn’t forget about the technical breaks during which he drinks the mysterious energy drink Punch, which feels as good as a can of spinach for the sailor Popeye. Plus, the janitor is actively playing pinball on a machine found right in Willy’s Wonderland. It looks almost intimate at times.

While the full-fledged adaptation of FNAF remains in limbo (the latest news was that filming would begin in the spring of 2023), fans, and with them the haters of animatronics, can happily “catch up” with the cage play. What could be better than an actor who has gained new popularity thanks to horror films of various degrees of cheapness, killing life size puppets with extreme cruelty?