Between a fervent fanbase numbering in the millions, multi-generational, cross-over appeal, and box-office returns almost 30x the original investment, a sequel to 2023’s gateway horror hit, Five Nights at Freddy’s, the cinematic adaptation of Scott Cawthon’s uber-popular indie video game series, was never in serious doubt.
To paraphrase a long-gone character from another, non-horror franchise, “It was inevitable.”
What wasn’t inevitable, though, was what audiences could or should expect from a semi-anticipated sequel. Certain elements were, of course, a given: returning cast members play now familiar characters, the bizarro-land animatronics meticulously crafted by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, and lore-heavy storytelling courtesy of the video game series. Created for Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a nightmare-inducing, fictionalized spin on the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain, the animatronic characters were — and still are — practically worth the price of admission on their own.
The aptly titled, subtitle-free sequel, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, unsurprisingly delivers simultaneously more of the same, but with rapidly diminishing results. Five Nights at Freddy’s semi-successfully mixed downbeat, working-class family drama with supernatural horror, including the ghostly victims of a soul-stealing serial killer, William Afton (Matthew Lillard), a handful of passable scares, and a superficially satisfying finale (i.e., the family saved, the serial killer vanquished, the social order restored, and so forth).
Set in 2002, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 brings the first film's key players back for another round of animatronic mayhem, starting, but by no means ending with Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson), the hapless twenty-something security guard and the "adult" guardian to a preteen sister, Abby (Piper Rubio); Vanessa Shelly (Elizabeth Lail), a dedicated beat cop and daughter of the aforementioned William Afton; and a second, earlier incarnation of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, complete with an indoor boat ride and an equally dark history: The all-but-unnoticed murder of a preteen girl, Charlotte (Audrey Lynn-Marie), by Afton, and the seemingly permament imprisonment of her soul in an animatronic attraction, the Marionette.
There, the Marionaette lies quietly dormant for several decades until ghost hunters Lisa (McKenna Grace), Rob (David Andrew Calvillo), and Alex (Teo Briones) appear, eager to record the next segment of their video and/or streaming show. Fully embracing their status as fodder for the film’s frights, the trio soon find themselves separated and fighting for their lives against the reanimated mechanical monstrosities of the bankrupt food-and-entertainment chain.
Once done with the self-described Spectral Spookers, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 switches back into trauma mode as Mike crudely attempts to put the first film’s experiences behind him by simply refusing to talk about them with a frustrated Abby or Abby’s complicated feelings about the ensouled animatronic entertainers. In an all-too-brief reprise of the first film’s foray into Nightmare on Elm Street-inspired lucid dreaming, Vanessa tries to wrest control of her waking life by confronting the remnants of her father’s memories in her dreams. Shockingly, it doesn’t go well for Vanessa: Her capital "T" trauma remains unresolved.
As the sequel moves key characters and plot elements into narrative position, it repeatedly embraces the illogical and the absurd. An entirely unnecessary, tiresome subplot involves Abby, a science fair, and a mean-tempered science instructor, Mr. Berg (Wayne Knight), whose comeuppance at the mechanical hands and arms of Abby’s non-human friends seems all but assured. Mike’s willful stubbornness makes him the equivalent of an absentee parental figure, leaving Abby lonely and practically friendless, processing her grief through an unhealthy fixation on her non-corporeal friends.
Painfully bogged down by tangents into the game’s overcomplicated, convoluted lore, a slow-to-start first act, an unfocused, meandering second act, and inorganic, plot-driven character motivations, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 flounders badly, irrevocably sinking into incoherence, pre-telegraphed jump scares, and groan-inducing, sequel-ready cliffhanger of an ending that will leave even the hardest of hardcore members of the videogame series’ fanbase frustrated at the lack of a meaningful resolution.
Returning director Emma Tammi (The Wind) does her level best to elevate Cawthon’s woefully underwritten script. Despite Tammi’s competence behind the camera, the animatronic wonders created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, or Marc Fisichella’s spot-on, eerily decrepit production design for the abandoned pizza restaurant, can only take the audience so far and no further.
In the case of Five Nights at Freddy's 2, it’s not far enough. If, as planned, the series will continue with at least one more sequel, Cawthon should make the only reasonable choice still available: thank everyone for their contributions, nobly announce his retirement from additional big-screen adaptations, and let another screenwriter take a fresh turn on the Five Nights at Freddy’s series.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 opens theatrically in North America on Friday, December 5th, via Universal Pictures.