My Review of Five Nights At Freddy's 2 (2025)

 

Written by Scott Cawthon

Directed by Emma Tammi

Michael: "Welcome back, Charlotte."

I'm not sure if this has been the year for horror sequels. Both M3GAN 2.0 and Black Phone 2 felt like misfires to me and I think I can add this one into that pile as well. Aside from the clear cliffhanger to set up a third movie, this felt rather dull to me.

The movie opened with William Afton (Matthew Lillard) killing another young boy and being witnessed by a girl named Charlotte Emily (Audrey Lynn Marie). Charlotte's father, Henry (Skeet Ulrich) would end up playing a role in later events.

Anyways, moving the story to twenty years beyond that, the three survivors from the first movie were trying to get on with their lives. In particular, Abby Schmidt (Piper Rubio) was happy to tell her classmates about the events of the first movie while also preparing for her science project.

Instead of having antagonistic classmates, Abby found herself at the ire of teacher Mr Berg (Wayne Knight). Berg's needlessly cruel to Abby and ended up paying for it when a newly restored Chica (Megan Fox) wanted to see what was in his head. It turned out to be nothing.

As for older brother, Mike (Josh Hutcherson). Well, this movie tried to explore the idea of him maybe dating William's daughter, Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) but the trust between the two of them wasn't there. The presence of Vanessa's serial killer brother, Michael (Freddy Carter) didn't help matters either.

I have to say this movie did an incredibly poor job with setting Michael up as a villain as well as the return of Freddy (Kellen Goff) and company along with Abby being too easily manipulated by Chica. Everything about this film screamed a rush job with barely anything given proper time to breathe, story wise.

- Credit scenes include a bunch of delinquents finding William's corpse and Henry leaving a warning for Mike. Charlotte possessed Marionette.

- Jim Henson's Creature Shop provided the animatronics for this movie as they did with the first.

- The reveal about Henry at the end should definitely set up scenes for Skeet Ulrich and Matthew Lillard in the likely third movie.

- Chronology: 1982 for the opening scene and 2002 for the majority of the movie.

I wanted to like Five Nights At Freddy's 2 but I honestly found it very dull, repetitive and poorly handled with it's lore and new villains. This felt very rushed as a sequel and it definitely suffered for it too.

Rating: 5 out of 10 

My Review of Five Nights At Freddy's (2023)

 

Written by Scott Cawthon And Seth Cuddeback And Emma Tammi

Directed by Emma Tammi

Steve: "And you only have to worry about one thing. Keeping people out. And, and you know, and keep the place tidy."

Mike: "That's two things."

Full disclosure: I have never play this game and likely won't either but I've been curious about this movie for a while now. The trailers certainly sold it for me but did it turn out to be as good as it looked?

For the most I would say yes to this. It helped that it had a likeable main protagonist with Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson). Mike's an ordinary guy trying to look out for his younger sister, Abby (Piper Rubio). Sadly for Mike, he has a few obstacles against him.

Notably his ruthless Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson) who won't stop in order to separate Mike and Abby. This included getting Abby's babysitter, Max (Kat Conner Sterling) and getting the latter's family to sabotage Mike's latest job. However that's something that turned out to be fatal for Max and her family.

Speaking of Mike's new gig, it's one that career counselor Steve Raglin (Matthew Lillard) encouraged him to take - a security guard gig at an abandoned family restaurant. An ordinary however it's not as Mike soon realised the animatronic creatures. - Golden Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy and Freddy Fazbear are possessed by dead kids.

Yes, there's a big plot about dead children, including the murder of Mike and Abby's brother, Garrett (Lucas Grant) and Mike spends a good portion in dreams wanting to bring his brother back and nearly losing Abby as a consequence. Then there's also policewoman Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail).

Again as someone unfamiliar with the lore of this franchise, the reveal of her being the daughter of the real villain was a decent twist. The real villain being serial killer William Afton, aka Steve Raglin aka the Fazbear Entertainment founder. Lillard makes the most of his killer reveal and he's a solid baddie whose reign of terror on children saw him get his just desserts.

- The Jim Henson company did a wonderful job with the animatronics.

- Nice use of Atari computer graphics to fill in the backstory for Freddy's in the movie.

- Blumhouse did a dual release on Peacock and in theatres like they've done with other movies.

- Chronology: 80s flashbacks with present day setting.

Five Nights At Freddy's I get the feeling might have appealed more to newbies like myself than the game fans. It's an enjoyable outing with good performances and some family friendly gore to boot. Given its success, a sequel will definitely be happening.

Rating: 7 out of 10