Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (Film)

When the first Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) film finally came out in 2023 and proved itself a runaway success, making back over ten times its $20 million budget, a sequel, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (FNAF2), based on the game of the same name, was inevitable. As a fan, I was hyped enough for the film that I attended the Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con, where the cast and crew discussed the experience working on the film and they had announced a Scream reunion with Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich appearing in the same film once again (they also gave away pizza boxes lifted straight out of FNAF). As a reviewer, I recognized the flaws in FNAF, even more so on repeated viewings, though there were assurances that the production crew had listened to feedback and incorporated the criticisms into the sequel, which had a much smoother production. While FNAF2 did leave me curious about the future of the series, I can’t deny that it was overall a step down from the original.

One year after the events of FNAF, the animatronics and the stories around them have become folklore, leading to the creation of the local FazFest. Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) has started dating Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), though neither will admit it, while his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) has taken an interest in robotics. Abby misses her “friends”, the animatronics from Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, and wants to fix them, but discovers that they won’t move anymore. To help her feel better, Mike lets her take a keepsake from the pizzeria, a toy called the FazTalker. Later, Abby hears a voice from the FazTalker and, believing that it’s Chica, goes to meet her in a new location, the original Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, and unknowingly unleashes a reminder of the company’s dark past.

As with the first movie, the sets and animatronics are immaculate. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop managed to make the animatronics look like someone plopped the character models into the real world, which is no easy feat and easily the most impressive aspect of the production. Seeing the animatronics move about completely with practical effects helps the immersion and will also help the effects age much better than they would otherwise. The sets still nailed the atmosphere of the games to a T, complete with the very well-used pizzerias that have obviously seen better days. The security office in the original Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza is even a 1:1 recreation of the office from the related game, with every last detail intact. Some elements of the office look a bit silly as a result, like the giant buttons labeled “Lights” above the air vents, but credit where it’s due.

The animatronics look immaculate;
Pictured: Toy Freddy (Voiced by Kellen Goff, left),
Toy Bonnie (Voiced by Matthew Patrick, right)

The acting is hit and miss thanks to the material they have to work with, but some performances do stand out. Matthew Lillard continues doing a good job as William Afton and Skeet Ulrich does fine as Henry Emily in his lone scene. Notably, three of the animatronics, Toy Chica, Toy Bonnie and Toy Freddy, have voice acting now and sound fantastic. Kellen Goff, who actually voices variants of Freddy in the games, continues doing well as Toy Freddy while MatPat, credited as Matthew Patrick, is unrecognizable as Toy Bonnie (in a good way). The biggest surprise, however, was Megan Fox as Toy Chica, swinging between sweet and sinister with ease. Since Kellen Goff actually is a professional voice actor, I wonder if any future sequels would also consider using more voices from the games (e.g. Marta Svetek as Roxanne Wolf in a hypothetical Security Breach film).

With that said, I’m of two minds on the rest of the film as both a FNAF fan and as a regular audience member.

If you’re a fan, there’s plenty to love. Apart from the immaculate sets and animatronics, CoryxKenshin returns as the taxi driver, a minor role that he plays very well. "Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre" aka the “Toreador March” actually plays during the film at appropriate times and another The Living Tombstone song plays during the first half of the credits, this time “It’s Been So Long”. There are plenty of background easter eggs, including a reference to Five Nights at Candy’s, a fangame series that later went official through The Fazbear Fanverse Initiative, and a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance from RWQFSFASXC aka Shadow Bonnie. While this film is predominantly based on the game Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, it also borrows elements from Sister Location and the novel The Twisted Ones, which will surely get lore-obsessed fans’ minds running with possibilities. There are even faithful recreations of every single game mechanic present in the source game, so there’s some respect for actually trying to work them all in no matter how ridiculous they may look for an outsider (they even included the detail that Withered Foxy is immune to the effects of the Fazbear mask in the office).

They did the thing!
Pictured: Withered Chica

On the other hand, the script is really rough if you think about it for more than two seconds. Although FNAF fans will notice that Jeremy Fitzgerald is nowhere in sight, it does follow up on the previous film in a natural way and expands on the setting while adding some depth to Abby’s character. However, there is a big issue with how it balances the cast, namely that there are, quite simply, too many characters to give them all meaningful screentime. The core cast not only return from the previous film, but three more major characters (either to the plot or to the overall lore) are introduced (including two antagonists), as well as ten new animatronics, plus the original four. Not counting minor characters who get significant screentime, that’s still around twenty characters to juggle, which means that a number of them inevitably feel wasted or underused, including Henry Emily, Michael (Freddy Carter) (not to be confused with Mike) and the Withered animatronics (Withered Freddy, Withered Bonnie, Withered Chica and Withered Foxy). It would probably have helped if the film was a few minutes longer or if they had streamlined the story more to avoid overstuffing it, an issue that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 sidestepped by faithfully adapting Sonic Adventure 2 while saving some characters for another film.

Although fan feedback had a hand in shaping the sequel, there’s still an imbalance between writing for the fans versus writing for the average viewer. From my experience, non-fans can follow the general story just fine, but the finer details can get confusing unless you’re already familiar with the series and lore (I actually overheard someone explaining certain things to someone else during our showtime). Fans may find the nods to them really cool, but trying to acknowledge the fan scene and incorporate any- and everything from the game as possible comes at a cost that manifests in driving part of the plot forward with contrivances rather than a more natural sequence of events (the editing doesn’t help much either). Of the two antagonists in the film, Michael also shares the same major issue as William Afton in the first, in that he’s only really present for the beginning and end, with no time given towards his development in the middle, so the major twist regarding his involvement only really means anything to viewers who are already in the weeds.

Michael (Freddy Carter) disappears for most of the film.

Speaking of Michael, the movie also has a rather abrupt ending. The way the protagonists get out of a hopeless situation at least has some foreshadowing and an emotional touch. However, we’re expected to suddenly care about Michael when he reveals himself after no real buildup outside of his introduction. Once all is said and done, however, there is no denouement and Mike has a rather sudden change of heart, all to set up a tease for a third film. If that wasn’t enough, the mid-credits scene teases a Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 film so hard, which indicates some level of (over)confidence in FNAF2’s success. Hopefully, the focus on only one animatronic in the third game means streamlining the story a lot more and putting more focus where it’s needed, including the horror element.

Although more critical viewers may argue that the horror element in these movies is too family-friendly, it did still do some things fairly well by playing around more with different camera angles. The highlight would be the scenes where Vanessa is clearly still processing her childhood traumas, which are much more psychological and (comparatively) intense. These have a great execution and it would be interesting to see if any future films lean into this a bit more.

If you were not already a Five Nights at Freddy’s fan and hoped for significant improvement with Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, you won’t find it here and it’s best if you watch it with someone who can answer any questions you may have. I would still watch Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 just to see how the material gets adapted, but the changes necessary for a major improvement would need to start with the script. Perhaps it’s time Scott Cawthon had a co-writer once more and made more of an effort to help this arm of the franchise stand on its own. Fanservice is nice, but it can only carry you so far.