Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 has one main thing going for: the first movie was so bad, so boring, and with so much wasted potential, that a sequel couldn't conceivably be any worse, especially with all the boring information about the ghostly kids trapped inside the animatronic animals out of the way (one of the worst told mysteries ever put in film). And in that regards, it delivers, so we can start this Five Nights at Freddy's 2 movie review on a positive note: the sequel is a bit better, more entertaining, and certainly with many more robots and jumpscares. The use of real animatronics mixed with digital effects continues to impress despite the muted colours, but overall the movie feels like Freddy Fazbear, Chica, and the rest: lifeless.

FNAF 2 picks up a while after the events of the first movie, to account for the growing up of the ten-year-old Piper Rubio, who misses her "friends", which, if you don't remember the first film from 2023, were the spirits of children who, back in the 1980s, were kidnapped and killed, and their bodies hidden inside the animatronic bears (the movie takes place in the early 2000s).

Her older brother, played by Josh Hutcherson, thankfully doesn't have the same repetitive nightmares about his missing brother - barely alluded in the sequel - so instead the threat comes from elsewhere: an older Freddy's pizzeria where a murder was committed, involving again Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), the daughter of Matthew Lillard's character in the first film. He was the author of a series of atrocities in the restaurant, but what really happened, what were his motivations, and what were the consequences for him and his family remains mostly unexplained in both films, despite a promising flashback opening scene.

The worst sin of these films is that they continue to mistake intrigue for confusion: they overexplain the plot, what is every character doing at every specific moment, and the rules of the "game" (like how the animatronics move, how to fight them, with many more Easter eggs for fans), but the most interesting elements of the lore or what happened with Lillard's character (who only has a cameo here) are barely touched upon. It was especially frustrating in the first movie, and continues to hamper the sequel, even if there are some improvements as it puts the focus in other places.

For example, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 sets up that there is a very active fan cult around the creatures from the Freddy's restaurants (including a completely wasted 'Fazfest' with hundreds of people dressed as these characters) as well as a conspiracy following the tragic deaths and disappearances of the children in the 80s, but the movie only tells you whatever the screenwriter wants to tell you through Vanessa's words, which leads to many loose plot threads that confuse the viewer. The screenwriter, by the way, is Scott Cawthon, the creator of the game, whose only other filmmaking credits are a series of Christian short movies about the Bible.

You get the feeling that the movie is constantly overexplaining everything and at the same time keeping the best parts of this world away from you, which makes it super frustrating for any outsider (people that are not familiar with the games) to really get a grasp of what is going on in order to start enjoying the decidedly cool premise of killer animatronics for children.

Sadly, as it happened in the first movie, you can't even do that, as the violence is completely toned down, with the camera always cutting away before any visceral moment. In other words, if you're not a fan of the games looking for Easter eggs and don't get a kick out of seeing your favourite characters on the big screen, and just want to enjoy a Blumhouse-style bloodbath, you won't find anything of use here. Mckenna Grace and Wayne Knight (!) are two higher-profile additions to the cast, but don't expect too much from them.

Beyond the fan-service, the only way these movies can be enjoyed is if we take them as a introductions for 12-year-olds to the horror genre. The horror scenes are predictable, by-the-numbers, and only rely on jumpscares. But, at least, the second one has many more of those than the first, so it's a bit more satisfying to watch, with more cool moments with robots roaming around, even outside the restaurant, and less weird dream sequences with children in the forest.

Still, there's a long way to go for these movies to be remotely interesting for people who are not familiar with the video game series. More violence would certainly help them to be more fun, but Blumhouse wants to keep it a family-friendly franchise, and I can't really blame them, given the popularity of the game. Not a good movie, but not as bad as the first, so if they keep up with the trend, maybe the third one will be decent...