Looking for a spoiler-filled Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 movie review? I break down the opening scene, missed story opportunities, and why the sequel didn’t live up to the first film.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is one of my oldest child’s special interests. I know more lore about a serial killer in a bunny suit than I ever imagined I would.
Being the default horror parent, when the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie came out last year, I was the one who went to see it with him. My only hope at the time was that it was more interesting than the little bit of game-play I had watched and more like some of the graphic novels my kid had read to me.
And, it turned out that I LOVED the first movie, so I was just as eager as he was to see the second one that released this month.
THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!!!!!
FOR REAL THOUGH
The film opened very strong for me, as we get to see a young Vanessa and her friend Charlotte in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Charlotte is sitting by a trap door in a stage waiting for someone/something to appear. She had almost been convinced to join an ongoing birthday party when she sees someone in a rabbit suit snatch a boy off the floor into a dark hallway.
She tries to alert any adult in the area that a child needs help, and every single one of them blows her off. So, she decides to go rescue the kid on her own. She finds the boy, unconscious on the floor, and William Afton washing up and whistling
She picks up the boy, who is roughly the same size she is, and there is a slow speed chase as she tries to carry the boy to safety though the dark halls, while Afton pursues her in his iconic suit, knife in hand.
Charlotte, boy still in her arms, appears to have gotten them back to safety. They emerge from behind a red curtain onto the stage at the front of the place, where life is going on as if nothing happened at all. Charlotte SCREAMS, and all eyes turn to her. The boy wakes up and runs to his father. Charlotte stands there, panting, watching the scene, then slowly collapses and we get to see that there are several bloody spots on the back of her shirt. She had not made it back safely after all.
It turns out she was standing on the same trap door that she had been waiting by at the start, and the door opens dropping her inside. Then, ever so slowly, the attraction under the trap door rises up, and we get to see Charlotte, draped across the arms of her favorite animatronic, The Marionet, the same way she had the boy draped across her arms when she emerged.
It was amazing. And, unfortunately, it was the best part of the movie. It all went downhill from there.
Plot Misses and Frustrations
If you don’t know the lore…all of the animatronics are possessed by the spirit of a child killed by William Afton. Charlotte’s ghost, of course, possesses the marionette. It could have been a tragically beautiful story arc but they instead decided to go full on villain with her.
While Abby is missing her friends at the Freddy’s that Mike was a night guard for, a team of reality show ghost hunters show up at the new pizza place for this movie, and they give very, very little to the plot. They serve only to wake up the puppet/Charlotte before being killed off by random things in the pizza shop.
(One guy getting eaten in the fake river by what looked like a school of marionette look alike puppet piranhas was a decent scene then we never see them again even when we end up back in the fake river)
Charlotte’s ghost, now awake, wants revenge and uses Abby’s connection to the old animatronics to trick her into letting her out of the building she is trapped in so she can seek revenge on the “parents.”
There are so many things they could have used to better the story line. Like Abby’s robotics class. Why is she even in robotics class? They could have used that to have her go fix her friends at the first Freddy’s to help fight the evil ones controlled by Charlotte. But, no, she seems to only be in the class so that they can make her teacher be mean to her.
The movie relied far to heavily on jump scares, to the point that it actually got rather tedious. Meanwhile, the withered animatronics were underutilized when they could have been the most terrifying part of the whole movie. Especially Mangled Foxy.
Vanessa’s sub-plot of having trouble sleeping serves no point to the plot aside from getting Matthew Lillard some screen time in the movie.
The ending, of Mike telling Vanessa to stay away from them after one lie by omission from her too many leading to her being possessed by Charlotte, is purposely setting up for a sequel when I think an Evil Vanessa would have been a better story line for this one all along in the first place.
Final Thoughts on FNAF 2
Overall, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 had an amazing opening scene but struggled to deliver a satisfying story after that. The movie leaned too heavily on jump scares, underused iconic animatronics, and missed opportunities with characters like Abby and Vanessa.
For FNAF fans, there are still a few reasons to be excited. Such as Springtrap’s potential return hinted for the third installment, but as a standalone sequel, it falls short of the first film’s re-watch value. I give it 3 stars, most of them belonging to that unforgettable opening sequence.
