Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 comes right after the events of the first film, give or take a few months. Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and Abby Schmidt (Piper Rubio) are trying to rebuild their life after the traumatising horrors faced at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. That of which uncovered the infamous serial killer to be William Afton (Matthew Lillard), who is the father of Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), a cop whose intentions were morally grey up until the end of the film.
Fans who love the game and are well versed in the deep lore around the series are no doubt going to love this film and the easter eggs scattered throughout. A few that could be of note would be the introduction to Charlotte Emily (Audrey Lynn Marie), an important plot point that will carry into the inevitable third film; the nod to the second game replicating the room with no door, and making light of the fact that putting on a Freddy Fazbear mask will hide you from these giant animatronics; and Shadow Bonnie also makes an appearance if you look really closely.
And the internet’s leading expert on all things Five Nights at Freddy’s, Matthew “MatPat” Patrick, features in the film as Toy Bonnie. His relentless attempts to understand the convoluted lore of the game on the YouTube channel The Game Theorists, made him well known in the fandom and is a cheeky tidbit for those who followed along all those years ago.
But in terms of the movie itself, it feels almost as convoluted as the lore of this game. A confusing mess with no resolution and not enough jump scares.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 tries to fit as many things as they can in the one movie. We go back to the 80s and meet Charlotte Emily, who witnesses William Afton almost murder another child, and in an effort to save him, she unfortunately gets killed. Then there’s a team of supernatural ghost hunters that explore abandoned places for their TV show, conveniently providing the setting for the original Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria and introducing us to Michael Afton (Freddy Carter). Abby is then suddenly this robotics wizard at the age of 11, with a science teacher that is so comically mean that it comes across as, for the lack of a better word, annoying. Mike and Vanessa have a 5 second interaction of will they or won’t they, and don’t really interact much thereafter until the climax of the movie. And FazFest, the festival capitalising on true crime, is happening in the midst of everything.
The first film definitely felt like it had more of a structure, where it was able to build the base reality and give each of these characters drive and purpose. But in this film, it was as if their characters and their development was abandoned; with cheesy lines being fed to the actors as plot devices rather than anything that aids in creating a deep seeded story for the characters. This movie feels like a cheap cash grab to get the attention of dedicated fans of the game by giving them a movie full of fan service and absolutely no plot. The jump scares also replicated the game too closely, which doesn’t necessarily translate well onto the big screen.
It also feels completely wrong to have both Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich in their first film together since Scream, and have them not interact at all. But this could be setting them up for the third film, who really knows with this franchise.
The ending was unsatisfying and felt incomplete, ultimately emulating the exact feelings I had when leaving the cinema. As a fan of the games, I can appreciate the effort put into building a world that fans will love and recognise (with the discourse online already proving this). But as a film itself, it’s full of plot holes, returning characters that for some reason felt unfamiliar, and lazy writing that leaves viewers with more questions than answers.
