Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Review – When Bigger Doesn’t Mean Better

Back in 2023, Emma Tammi undertook the monumental task of adapting the beloved video game franchise of Five Nights at Freddy’s into a feature film. The results? Mixed to say the least, but mostly favorable due to the fan service, understanding some of the source material, and a surprisingly good cast of characters. Still, it had some of those underwhelming horror-movie staples that kept the film from rising to more hopeful heights. Now, Tammi returns to Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and aims to fix many of its predecessor’s mistakes. Still, in doing so, it takes several steps back and delivers an even more disappointing film, carried only by the performances in this convoluted animatronic mess.

A Plot Stuck in Rusty Gears

The story kicks off with a flashback to the first Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. In it, we learn about the story of poor Charlotte, interpreted by Audrey Lynn Marie, who William Afton murdered, and yes, Matthew Lillard returns to play the villain. Since Charlotte died inside the pizzeria and it is a staple of kids’ souls in this universe to possess animatronics, Charlotte becomes The Marionette. Or, as many know it from the games, The Puppet. Naturally, this establishment closes, everyone moves to the second pizza place, the first movie happens, and now we all take a trip to meet our present-day cast of characters again.

Josh Hutcherson and Piper Rubio return to reprise their roles as Mike and Abby, respectively. The former is trying to lead an everyday life by doing house repairs and going on dates with traumatized Vanessa, played again by Elizabeth Lail. Turns out she was there when Charlotte died and is having nightmares with his father, Charlotte, and a lot of fan-service moments that turned the whole movie theater upside down. Abby is struggling to live without her animatronic friends, and, like any other kid in a horror film, instead of living a normal life and playing with other children, she decides to pursue her lost murderous robotic buddies.

The truth is, the plot just gets stranger as the movie introduces more sub-plots in every scene. There is a Fazbear festival in town, where people celebrate the murderous robots and the fast-food chain as if it were the most normal thing. We have Vanessa going on an Inception journey again, having the same lucid dreams Mike had in the first film, but to face her father. There is a crew straight out of Grave Encounters trying to film the inside of the first Freddy Fazbear’s, and many other side stories that don’t even stand out whatsoever.

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Unfortunately, the few sub-plots that seemed interesting are crushed by the weight of unnecessary scenes, characters, and details that are forgotten in the next scene. For instance, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 introduces Michael, a key character in the video game series, portrayed by Freddy Carter. Michael, being the huge character he is in the game, is left on the bench, with only a couple of scenes that serve to add one cliffhanger after another, and a few details that only hardcore fans will really understand. It is sad, really, because Carter did an excellent job playing Michael’s role, with an original take that differs significantly from the game’s counterpart.

While the cast does a terrific job of playing these characters and navigating this frustrating labyrinth of sub-plots, there isn’t much to salvage in the story or the creative choices. Several things lack any form of sense, and the film’s pacing doesn’t help, either. Some conflicts get magically fixed off-screen, while others are left to rot entirely. The silver lining is that the fan service is of the highest quality. As a fan of the games, I was happy to see Tammi adapt the static point-and-click gameplay into an actual scene where Mike uses some of the game’s gadgets to dodge animatronics. Beyond that, however, nothing really shines.

The PG-13 Animatronics Are Back

Since Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 aims to attract its younger audience — or a few of us who are mortgage payers and gamers — the attention to Freddy and the gang is, yet again, of the highest quality. This is expected as Jim Henson’s Creature Shop returns to bring the animatronics to life, which are one of the few significant parts of the film.

Instead of just having the mechanical creatures we saw in the first, we have some fan-favorites debuting on the big screen, such as Mangle, the Withered animatronics, and the first versions of Freddy and the crew. This sequel tried to pay homage to all the robotic roster of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and 3, and did so with flying colors. Unfortunately, they feel underused in the actual plot, as the horror element is lacking throughout the whole film.

Since the movie has a PG-13 rating, we can’t expect something like Alien: Romulus or other horror movies that move away from cheap jump scares and dumb characters. Often, characters will go down the obviously dangerous path where you can smell the jump scare from miles away. Furthermore, the big moments when the animatronics show up to do some killing are toned down with cheesy humor, dumb choices by the characters, and some of the most anticlimactic moments in horror cinema of recent memory. You could title this movie Five Nights at Freddy’s 2: Jump Scare Boogaloo, because that’s the only horror technique the film uses, and still manages to execute it poorly.

Trapped in a Springlock

While I’d like to praise more things about this sequel, its 104-minute runtime does little to impress the audience, and even if you’re a die-hard fan of the game series, you’ll quickly spot the loose springs in the animatronic suits. This film, which could have refined and improved everything that its predecessor did wrong, does the opposite. Scott Cawthon, who took the lead in writing the script this time, butchers almost every sub-plot by not giving them room to breathe, develop, or make sense. And Tammi, whose direction in the original was salvageable, becomes questionable now with all these choices that undermine the legacy of this horror gaming phenomenon.

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Overall, if you’re a hardcore devotee of Five Nights at Freddy’s, you’ll find some enjoyment, especially when spotting the dozens of references. You’ll be pointing at the screen faster than that DiCaprio meme of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But if you’re a horror fan, don’t expect anything memorable. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is, undoubtedly, one of the most forgettable, convoluted, and disappointing horror films of the year.