Movie Review: ‘Five Nights At Freddy’s 2’

Tweet
Five Night’s at Freddy’s 2 is, obviously, the sequel to the 2023 supernatural horror movie which is based on the popular video game series, picking up the first movie’s story about a year later after the legend has spread creating a themed festival. The movie has some great visual effects and effective, albeit cliché and predictable, PG-13 horror elements. I enjoyed the movie and, with the way the film “ended”, I really hope they get to make this a trilogy (at least).

The movie assumes the audience has good memories and has seen the first film, so it doesn’t spend a whole lot of time reintroducing the returning characters. Mike and Vanessa are possibly starting to date, though they are conflicted because Mike wants to move on from the trauma of the first movie while Vanessa is still very much trying to cope with it. Mike’s sister, Abby, wants to reunite with her animatronic, ghost-possessed friends whom Mike has promised to fix with no intention of following through. I think Mike is supposed to be one of the protagonists, but there is a lot to dislike about him in this movie.

The new characters are what really kick the plot into gear. The film opens with a flashback that introduces a new creepy Marionette figure that serves as the primary antagonist once awakened in the film’s present day. The ghost that possesses the marionette was the first child killed at the first Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza location, and she is determined to take revenge on the parents that were there using the other animatronics along with other humans that she can possess.

There are a lot of other plot threads woven in, possibly as nods to the games. I played a couple of the games once or twice because my nephews love them, but I didn’t get into them as much. I took one of my nephews with me to the screening and he was comparing it (positively) to the games on the ride home. I am guessing fans of the games will enjoy it a lot while casual horror fans can still enjoy it while others are recognizing elements from the games (I could tell by the audience reaction when something from the games appeared).

Like any film, there are flaws and plot holes if you think too much about the movie. For example, during some scenes, the animatronics cannot move very fast and make loud noises when they move, but during other scenes, they appear out of nowhere with no noise and can jump onto a moving car; it just depends on what makes the scene scarier, I’m guessing. Also, despite this being nearly two hours, this felt like half of a movie. There are many plot threads left dangling and quite a few cliffhangers that seem designed to continue into another movie, which I am not sure has been greenlit yet.

I did enjoy seeing Skeet Ulrich and Matthew Lillard in the same movie again, though I hope they have a scene together next time.