Willy's Wonderland Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out Willy's Wonderland releases on VOD, and in select theaters, on Friday, February 12. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Sprinting to our screens ahead of the live-action Five Nights at Freddy's movie, which is still bouncing around in development, is Nicolas Cage battling evil, murderous animatronics in Willy's Wonderland - an earnest-yet-crudely executed low-budget horror flick about a drifter who gets trapped inside a haunted Chuck E. Cheese-style pizzeria and left to die at the claws of a robotic weasel and its malicious minions. Willy's Wonderland, like the Chuck E. Cheese chain, is cheaply presented and goes for easy, low-hanging thrills. It's not pretty to look at and it's edited sort of clumsily, in hyperkinetic ways meant to distract from some of the shoddiness, but the bare bones of this film are surprisingly strong. No, "Nic Cage battling killer party puppets" isn't enough of a gimmick to carry an entire film, and Willy's Wonderland does strain a bit to fill its already short runtime, but it's enough for this type of small production. It's sufficient to make for a sort of overlong standalone X-Files episode. Cage stars as a silent, soda-swigging, mysterious Camaro driver who falls victim to the sinister swindle of a non-internet-having town called Hayesville. In order to fix his sabotaged car, Cage's "Janitor" (as he's labeled in the credits), is offered an overnight stay, and job, at a rundown family arcade called Willy's Wonderland. He just has to clean the place until morning. Little does the Janitor know that the lair's dormant animatronic characters will slice you to ribbons given half a chance. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/01/15/willys-wonderland-official-trailer"] Or maybe he does know? You can never quite tell. There's a lingering puzzle about Cage's character that doesn't quite pay off. In fact, overlooking the paltry purse strings of the film (because that can't be helped), the only egregious error here is that the story doesn't go far enough. It sort of settles on an "okay" answer palate, giving us only medium surprises, when it could push boundaries further and get a lot more wild than it does. Without giving too much away, Cage's "Man With No Name"-type hero feels like he could be fascinating, but then the final screw never gets turned and we're left kind of adrift in a movie that could have been more. In the very least, Willy's Wonderland perhaps gives Five Nights at Freddy's fans a more fleshed-out backstory for its possessed pizzatorium than you get for Freddy's in the game series, and at its best, the movie is sort of mindless mayhem anchored by Cage, who also serves as an executive producer, as he bludgeons his way through ghastly versions of gators, gorillas, ostriches, and more. There's not enough here to score high marks, but there's cartoonish carnage aplenty and that warrants a passing grade. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=horror-movies-that-should-be-video-games&captions=true"] As much as the movie would love to be 90 minutes of Cage quietly glowering at menacing machines, it can't be, so other characters roll in to both add to the bloodshed and also fill out the Willy lore. Emily Tosta's Liv, along with her circle of soon-to-be-butchered friends, is hellbent on ending the terror that Willy's inflicts on others. She's sort of a lone crusader in Hayesville, willing to stand up to Willy and his horde, and she forms an alliance with Cage's Janitor. Though due to the Janitor's oddball habits and enigmatic work regimen (which, again, we don't really get closure on) it's a strained connection. It's clear, however, that she's drawn to him as an outsider since that's how she feels herself. Beth Grant, Ric Reitz, and Chris Warner fill out the adult roles here as secretive and shifty members of Hayesville who have devious designs for Cage's lone wolf. It's all rather splattery and silly but tonally it works and everyone squeezes out a solid small-scale performance. Unfortunately, there are moments, particularly with Cage's character, where you want a few more answers, and for the story to stretch its legs a little more, but Willy's Wonderland is kind of an "as-is" slaughterfest.

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