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Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Review
Image Credit: Universal Pictures
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Directed By: Emma Tammi
Written By: Scott Cawthon; Based on the video games created by Scott Cawthon
Runtime: 104 minutes
MPA Rating: Rated PG-13 for strong violent content, bloody images, and language.
Josh Hutcherson – Mike Schmidt
Elizabeth Lail – Vanessa Shelly
Piper Rubio – Abby Schmidt
Mckenna Grace – Lisa
Wayne Knight – Mr. Berg
Freddy Carter – Michael
Audrey Lynn Marie – Charlotte
Matthew Lillard – William Afton
Theodus Crane – Jeremiah
Skeet Ulrich – Henry
Megan Fox – Chica (voice)
Kellen Goff – Freddy (voice)
Matthew Patrick – Bonnie (voice)
Writer Scott Cawthon and director Emma Tammi return to the world of Cawthon’s popular video game series, Five Nights at Freddy’s, for the underwhelming sequel, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. The sequel expands the lore and worldbuilding previously established in the first film, but it’s handled in herky-jerky fashion, creating a flat, execrable experience as the franchise expands.
Beginning with a prologue set in 1982, the young child Charlotte (Lynn Marie) forlornly attends another child’s birthday party at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Charlotte views the restaurant’s creepy Marionette Puppet as her only friend. However, this location looks quite different from the location shown in the first film. The setting for this film is actually the original Freddy Fazbear’s restaurant, and the building in the original film is the franchise location.
Unfortunately, poor Charlotte bears witness to an attempted child abduction by the serial killer William Afton (Lillard), wearing his animatronic rabbit disguise. Charlotte is shunned and ignored by all the adults at the party, and she seeks to intervene to rescue the child, but she’s mortally wounded in the process.
The plot fast-forwards twenty years, returning to the Schmidt siblings, Mike (Hutcherson) and Abby (Rubio), from the first movie. They have moved into a new home, and Mike wants to provide stability for his little sister. However, Abby still longs to be with her friends, the animatronic robots haunted by ghost children at the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza location from the first movie.
Meanwhile, Mike has begun casually dating Vanessa Shelly (Lail), William Afton’s daughter, who turned against her deranged father in the last movie. Vanessa is still haunted by memories of her psychotic father and growing up around Freddy’s.
Mike inexplicably wants to help Vanessa move past her trauma and be free of her father, but he’s unsure of the best way to help her. Unfortunately for them, something awakens yet another ghost at the original Freddy Fazbear’s location, and the supernatural entity thirsts for vengeance.
Much like the previous movie, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 suffers from a woefully undercooked, rudimentary script that cannot even keep all of its internal rules straight. The sequel spends swaths of its narrative expanding on the original, but the plot suffers from incoherent developments. Convoluted events unfold merely because the plot demands it.
The narrative states that the animatronics have a perimeter block that prevents them from leaving their pizzeria confines, but ghosts inhabit the mechanical monstrosities. The ghost entities, such as the Marionette, appear to be able to haunt or inhabit other human bodies, so it does not make sense that they are confined to the pizza parlor.
How exactly did the animatronic engineers make them compatible with human ghosts? Wasn’t that all just a coincidence because Afton hid the children’s bodies inside the robots? The rules governing the mixing of the technological with the supernatural in Five Nights don’t stand up to scrutiny. The clunky plot lumbers much like the walking, moving Freddy Fazbear’s animatronics.
Mike’s quasi-romantic relationship with Vanessa is strange. True, Vanessa did ultimately turn against her father in the last movie, and she was likely manipulated and brainwashed by him as a child; yet, she probably acted as his accomplice for years. It’s clear that Vanessa is a disturbed individual who needs professional help. It takes far too long for Mike to come to the obvious conclusion about Vanessa.
In terms of the cast, the actors do their best handling such underdeveloped material. Skeet Ulrich makes a welcome appearance as Charlotte’s grieving father, but he’s woefully underutilized. Unfortunately, his character serves more as sequel-baiting rather than fleshing out the main story. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 frustratingly shucks off the grander implications of its major reveals.
It was nice to see Wayne Knight in a decently budgeted movie, portraying Abby’s mean-spirited teacher, Mr. Berg. Knight plays his part, portraying a horror movie cliché, and he’s mainly there to meet a predictable fate.
Tammi and Cawthon waste a lot of time setting up a local town event called Faz Fest, as rumors started by Mike and Abby’s aunt created a resurgence in nostalgia for Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The Faz Fest narrative thread is so thin, and the film haphazardly rushes it into the plot exposition.
Ultimately, the Faz Fest becomes such a superfluous plot element, much like the rest of the story. Another significant plot thread involves Abby wanting to enter her own handmade animatronic into the science fair, which culminates with her entrance into one of the life-size “friends” instead. The science fair subplot makes less sense than animatronics haunted by ghost children who are bound to the rules of 1980s computer software.
It’s unclear how Mike and Abby’s less-than-influential aunt caused such massive hysteria, sparking a fan convention around a pizzeria where children mysteriously disappeared and were murdered. The setup teases the animatronics roaming into the aforementioned festival and wreaking havoc on the bystanders. Unfortunately, the sequel fails to deliver on such a basic slam dunk of a setup.
Fans of the games might appreciate how Tammi and Cawthon translate various imagery, sets, and moments from the games into the sequel. However, those elements are not brought to life to encompass a cohesive narrative. The plot poorly incorporates video game elements and conventions in a shoddy fashion.
Devoted fans of the game series will likely enjoy seeing the iconic imagery of the games brought to life. The Freddy’s animatronics, once again brought to life by The Jim Henson Company, are certainly striking, albeit not altogether terrifying.
Unfortunately, much like cheap jump scares, Tammi litters throughout the movie, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, and its animatronic stars feel disappointingly hollow.
Where To Watch Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 arrives in theaters on December 5. Showtime and ticket information are available at the movie’s website.
