Five Nights at Freddy’s 2

Currently only in theaters

Runtime: 1 Hour 44 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Vanessa and Mike are trying to move on with their lives after the horrific shared trauma at Freddy’s Fazbear’s Pizzeria. Mike’s little sister, Abby, however, is lamenting the absence of her friends Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy. Little do they know that there is still something haunting the original restaurant (not the one from the first movie) that is going to pull them all back into the madness.

Themes:

Family, pizza, animatronics, robotics, dreams, siblings, child abduction, ghosts, children, murder, hauntings, history, bad parents, evil, being controlled, possession, science fairs, children, trauma, spectral scoopers, fathers, truth, adults, heaven, and the 80s.

Language:

A*s - 4 D*mn - 1 D*ck - 1 Hell - 3 Sh*t - 5 Religious Exclamations - 1

Stuff to be aware of:

Scary - This is a scary movie, and I would say that with the inclusion of one new character, this one may be a bit scarier than the first. I felt there were more jump scares in this one. Multiple characters are dragged off-screen and killed, with blood being splattered or their legs twitching.

This may be a minor spoiler, but a new character can possess people and control them. When this character possesses someone, their eyes glow and are sunken in. The possessed characters run along the ground in unnatural ways and smile wider than they should be able to. This character is the main villain, so it’s in the movie a lot. This ghost/animatronic is creepy and chases people and moves around in the background scenes.

Violence/Gore - A child is lured into a backroom by a man in a costume and is knocked unconscious. A girl is seen with blood stains on her back to show she has been stabbed. The stabbing itself is not seen. Several deaths happen, and you know they did, but you don’t directly see them, which is likely why the movie could keep its PG-13 rating. I won’t hit everything, but I will try to give you an idea of what you will see.

A swarm of little puppets in a stream eats a man. This scene is reminiscent of something from a piranha movie; the man is sucked under, and blood bubbles to the surface in the water. When looking through a camcorder view screen, a severed limb is seen falling on the ground. A woman is dragged offscreen with her legs kicking. When she returns, she has evil, glowing, robotic-looking eyes.

A man falls from a second story, and the audience visually sees his body hit the ground, but he does not die. A man is lifted off the ground by his head by one of the animatronics. The animatronic begins to crush his head. The man’s head gets crushed off-screen, but blood splatters the floor.

Overall:

Seeing It With Your Family

If your child or family viewed the first film, you likely won’t find this one too different, except for a really creepy new character I mentioned above and more curse words than the first one. The movie isn’t designed for children, even if it is based on a video game.

What I Thought

Usually, the nice things about sequels are that all the characters are established, the lore is built, and you can just continue telling a story. Unfortunately, this is not the case for Five Nights at Freddy’s Two. The movie has to introduce more of the mythology, a new villain’s character, how the new character ties to the first movie, a new restaurant, and continue the journey of the main characters where we left off. Because of this, sometimes you can feel the weight of the writers trying to figure out how to introduce all the new things, link them to the old things, and further develop the characters and story. It makes for a much more chaotic and choppy story than the first.

I have not played the games, but I have watched videos and read about them. I think part of the issue with the story is that the writers are trying to overly explain everything. Some of the best horror movies just allow the monsters/ghosts/evil do their thing. Some exposition is good, but also so is some mystery. There is almost too much story and not enough senseless animatronics mayhem, which is what the video game is known for.

As with the first movie, I found myself in a weird place. I wanted more of Freddy and friends, but at the same time, I needed less to make them more scary. This causes the movie to not really work as a full-on horror movie or a gateway horror movie. It also seems a bit too much for kids.

I’m sure the game’s fanbase will help this movie be a success. The first movie wasn’t great, but this one took a step backwards.