Film Review: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2

As a gamer it is incredibly exciting to have all of these adaptions come to the big screen. Borderlands, Fallout, Uncharted, the list at this moment in time is pretty endless. A few years back a survival horror game was turned into a movie thanks to Blumhouse, and it was an instant hit. The film in question was Five Nights at Freddy’s. Personally, I had not played the game of which the film is adapted from but I was aware of the premise and I believe the filmmakers did justice to the game and to the story. This brings us to the inevitable sequel which I am talking about today, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2.

Josh Hutcherson and Elizabeth Lail return as ex-security guard Mike and local police officer Vanessa, who was also the daughter of the deranged William Afton, who returns here played again by Matthew Lilliard. The events take place not long after the first film. Mike and Vanessa are still coming to terms with the trauma they both endured from their time with the machines at Freddy Fazbear’s, an abandoned pizzeria. The automatons return with Freddy, Chica, Bonnie and Foxy. The story kicks off when it is learnt that there was another Freddy Fazbear’s which closed down due to a similar incident from the one in the first film. A young girl died there and her spirit now harbours a grudge in the form of a new automaton, the Marionette. The Marionette can control the other robots and they go hunting for a way to escape.

The first film worked really well because the scares were balanced with a story of childhood trauma. Mike’s younger brother was kidnapped when he was a little boy and Vanessa was her father’s scout for finding children for them to kill. Both Mike and Vanessa came to terms with their trauma, and this film sees them attempting to move on from that and to see if there is any possible relationship there between them. Mike’s younger sister is back too with Piper Rubio playing Abby. Abby has a special connection with her “friends”, the machines from the first film and she wants to reconnect with them, much to Mike’s dismay. This is what sparks the Marionette to reach out to her to help her escape.

The film has a few twists and turns but they lack the same weight as the twists in the first film. The movie attempts to go bigger with the story and scales back a little with the scares. There is a scene early on when some Youtubers search the old Fazbear location, and some of the scares in this bit are pretty good but this feeling is never really recaptured. It does appear the filmmakers and studio want to turn this series into a franchise with some open-ended stories left by the time the credits roll. The writing between Mike and Vanessa also seems a little less gripping this time around too. Vanessa as a character is a little more annoying this time and Mike is equally annoying but his role seems a bit more redundant this time around, serving very little purpose. Abby is the central character and her story is the more interesting one out of the three main characters.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is still entertaining and there are some pretty cool and scary moments. Sadly, it doesn’t reach the same atmosphere and potential that the first film promised. By opening the doors to the outside world, you no longer have that contained feeling of being stalked by these machines. That is what makes the games work well and hopefully they can re-capture that feeling when the inevitable third film comes around. The saying goes that less is more, but it appears they went the opposite for this sequel which is what usually happens. Game fans and fans of the first film will gain something out of it, but others may struggle committing to another potential horror franchise for the next few years at least.

★★★☆☆

3/5

Final Verdict:

Survival horror is a great genre to explore in gaming and it translates exceptionally well on the big screen, just look at the Resident Evil film series. With Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 the genre goes bigger and travels outside the locked confines of the pizzeria and into the big wide world. Sometimes it works in its favour for expanding this universe, but in other ways it fails to meet the same expectations of the first film. It is enjoyable and entertaining but at the end of the day there is a lot substance that is lacking within this film, but as a sequel it does an admirable job of expanding this franchise.

Thanks for reading today’s blog!

Alex Murray, the Head of Eyesight Productions