"Willy's Wonderland" is Hilariously Violent & Incredibly Silly
Or Nic Cage being his Nic Cage finest.
🍕🍕🍕 (out of 🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕)
Director: Kevin Lewis
Screenplay by: G.O. Parsons
Cinematography: David Newbert
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Emily Tosta, Ric Reitz, David Sheftell, Beth Grant
After watching "Five Nights at Freddy's," I decided it was time to watch "Willy's Wonderland," the seeming knockoff of the film (though writer G.O. Parsons and director Kevin Lewis swear it’s not) starring Nic Cage. “Five Nights at Freddy’s” was just too bloodless and silly for me to really enjoy it, and I figured if a movie had Nic Cage, it was probably gonna be wildin'. After all, if Cage is in a movie, it's either going to be amazing or terrible; there is no in between. I was not wrong.
"Willy's Wonderland" is just different enough not to be a total “Five Nights at Freddy’s” rip-off. Instead of the titular character being a kinda terrible brother, working as an overnight security guard who nearly gets his sister killed, you have a silent drifter tasked with cleaning up a Chuck E. Cheese-type restaurant overnight. Instead of a plucky (yet shady) cop, you get a group of dumbass teens. Instead of one serial killer, there are several, and instead of ghost children, you get satanic rituals. And instead of no blood, you get...well, okay, it’s actually just a small amount of blood. If you’re looking for gore, this is not the film you want.
Most of the violence in this film is directed at the animatronics (although several people die), and that violence is the only truly “bloody” thing here, as it’s highlighted by oil splattering out of the animatronics when they're brutally murdered. And brutally murdered they are. Nic Cage does not hold back on the violence against animatronics. He rips out "spines," curb stomps an animatronic into a urinal, and twists off heads. It's delightful.
And possibly the best part of all this? Cage doesn't speak a word the entire movie, nor does he blink an eye at murderous animatronics. Man is on a mission to clean up this restaurant, and ain't no killer robots gonna get in his way. His first time dealing with one of these things comes when he's mopping floors, hears a noise, and turns around to find the animatronic ostrich behind him. Does he panic? No. He pokes the thing with his mop, and when it starts cackling about "feasting on his face," he beats it to death, rips out its "spine," and goes about his business.
The entire movie, Cage has a timer set on his watch to go off every hour so he can go drink what’s either an energy drink or a soda and play a pinball machine he found in the kitchen. Why? Who knows. But he is so unbothered by all the mayhem going on around him that at one point, he ditches a teen girl in a fight and leaves her to her potential death to go down his drink and play pinball. Are these drinks magic? Do they give him the power to fight the animatronics? Will he die if he misses his hourly drink? shrugs Literally, no explanation is given for any of this behavior at any point. IT'S AMAZING.
Possibly, my biggest complaint about this film is the teens running around throughout. At one point, there is a whole ass fight (that briefly turns physical) over whether to go into the restaurant to try to save Cage and one of their friends. However, the moment they step foot into the restaurant, the kids split up, and the guy who was complaining the loudest about not wanting to go in and get murdered goes off to have sex with his girlfriend in the "Happy Fun Room" (actual name). Clearly, they are all morons, and it ends well for absolutely no one. The kids were absolutely irrelevant to what little plot there was, though, except for the main teen, who was a survivor of a previous bloodbath at the restaurant. Honestly, I probably would have liked the movie even more if it starred nobody but Cage and evil animatronics.
So, to sum up, while a bit bloodier than “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” "Willy's Wonderland" is also incredibly dumb. There is no plot other than "Nic Cage murdering animatronics." And yet...sometimes, that's really all you need in life.
What did you think of “Willy’s Wonderland?” Let me know in the comments!