Five Nights at Freddy’s 2: Horror Disappointment

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is the sequel to the 2023 horror hit Five Nights at Freddy’s. Both films are based on the video game series of the same name. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 sees Mike Schmidt, played by Josh Hutcherson, hiding the truth about the Freddy Fazbear animatronics from his 11-year-old little sister, Abby. However, when Abby sneaks out to reconnect with her animatronic friends, chaos ensues, and secrets are revealed about Freddy’s origins. I didn’t have many expectations when I went in to see Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, and I was still disappointed. It might just be one of the worst films of the year.

The first thing to note about Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is that, despite being a horror movie, it’s not scary in the slightest. If it’s a horror movie, then Schindler’s List is a comedy, and The Human Centipede is a romance. The largest factor that contributes to this is the unintimidating animatronics. The animatronics are what the horror aspect of the film hinges on, and that hinge has broken. Without getting into spoilers, the film doesn’t do anything legitimately terrifying or disturbing with them. They’re portrayed more like villains and heroes in a Marvel movie rather than horror monsters. There aren’t even any good jump scares with the animatronics, which is the least challenging thing the film could’ve done to make them scary. Other factors that exacerbate this film’s lack of horror are the animatronics’ unscary designs, their generic dialogue, questionable directing choices in tense scenes, and the film’s limited PG-13 rating. The bottom line is that you shouldn’t go into this film expecting a horror movie.

Another major issue with Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is its characters. If you were invested in Mike Schmidt’s character arc and development in the first movie, which was one of that film’s strongest aspects, then you’ll be disappointed to know that the sequel completely fails at continuing it. Not only is Mike featured much less in the sequel, but the depth of his character has shrunken immensely. He went from a semi-complex character to an archetypal protective older sibling. This isn’t helped by Josh Hutcherson’s deteriorated acting performance. Instead of Mike, the film shifts a lot of its attention to Venessa, Mike’s love interest, and Abby, both of whom aren’t much better. Venessa was fairly interesting in the first film, and I was hoping to see how the sequel would continue her development, but I was let down. In the sequel, her character development centers on her unresolved trauma stemming from her dead father, who was the main villain in the first film. 

While conceptually promising, the film portrays her trauma and PTSD in an incredibly forced and generic way, as well as being cartoonishly inaccurate. Her character had potential but it was completely wasted by the film’s bad script. Abby is probably the worst character here. She’s meant to seem hurt and naive after the events of the first film, but instead she comes off as just plain stupid, even for an 11-year-old. She makes so many frustrating and idiotic decisions that not only cause problems for everyone else in the film, but quite literally drive the main conflict. Almost none of the bad things in this film would have happened if it weren’t for Abby’s actions. This is made worse by the fact that she doesn’t seem remorseful over anything she does, and she faces no consequences.

Another thing the Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 fails at is plot. There is way too much going on; at any singular point, the film has at least four subplots occurring at once, and not all of them are particularly interesting or well-written. This makes the viewing experience fairly jarring, especially since some of the plotlines I would have liked to see expanded, yet they’re cut back to focus on other parts I don’t care about. It would have greatly benefited if most of its fluff had been cut, and instead, the film focused on having a more engaging narrative. There’s actually so much bloat in the plot that the film can’t conclude half of what it sets up in its runtime, and as a result, it ends on a cliffhanger. Its unresolved plotlines will likely be finished in an upcoming third film. This strategy of making a half-film to make audiences excited in a sequel, while a good idea financially, leaves the movie by itself an awkward watch. This is especially an issue right now, since the third film is at least a few years away. 

My review has been very negative, but I will admit there are some aspects I enjoyed about Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. The practical effects used for the animatronics are incredible, especially considering the film’s comparatively small budget. They’re so convincing that I don’t know how they could have made them more realistic. The film did a clever job of making plot connections to the first film, and a lot of small details in it are now more relevant. Also, while I do have some issues with how the filmmakers went about doing it, I will admit the things that were set up for the upcoming third installment are intriguing. (Although I can’t help but feel that the third film won’t act on those to their fullest, considering how poorly Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 expanded on its predecessor.)

In conclusion, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is a very bad movie. It might be worth watching if you’re going to see it with friends and want to goof off the whole time, or maybe if you’re a fan of the first film and you want to see how the story continues, but otherwise, it’s definitely worth skipping. Perhaps the third installment will improve on some of this film’s issues, but I’m not keeping my hopes up, and you shouldn’t either.