Game – Movie Review: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (2025)

Released in 2023, Five Nights at Freddy’s, an adaption of the video game franchise of the same name, aimed for mass appeal and ended up being wholly unremarkable. It was a film that did little to excite or offend, sitting squarely in the middle as a competent adaption and sanitised horror movie (read the review here).

I dream of those heady days.

Written by Five Nights at Freddy’s creator Scott Cawthon and directed by Emma Tammi, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is what you get when a lack of imagination runs into a lack of effort, where the mindset is torn between pointless lore obsession and super-sanitised Blumhouse scares. Not just worse than the original film, but one of the worst horror films of 2025. Although calling it a horror feels like an insult to all other horror films. There have been scarier episodes of Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark.

Who is this film supposed to appeal to? Is it horror fans? That makes no sense, this isn’t a horror. Is it gamers? That side of things has long since peaked. Is it causal audiences? Then why pack it with confusing lore? Blumhouse fans? Is there such a thing? Especially as the studio’s output is getting lazier and uglier. I’ve been scratching my head over this, and I still don’t have the answer.

This confusion runs through the entire film like a bulbous, pulsating vein. Offering up a contrived story that is tedious to experience, characters that range from being utterly insipid to utterly infuriating, and scares that are laughably bad. With the latter, the film has one track and it’s one it uses repeatedly. The jump scare with loud musical cues to boot. Over and over again. It actually gets embarrassing, especially as so little is actually effective.

So, what is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 about? In short, the Marionette, an animatronic at the very first Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza location. One inhabited by the ghost of a dead girl who is very, very angry. She has remained trapped at this location, long since closed down, thanks to a music box, but is able to possess the lead of a ghost hunting team and use Abby’s (Piper Rubio) connection with the first film’s animatronics/ghost kids to lure Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) in, so she can disable some wireless signal that stops the animatronics from leaving the site. Also, Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and William Afton (Matthew Lillard) are here, sort of as far as the latter goes. As well as new characters played by Freddy Carter, Skeet Ulrich, Wayne Knight, Mckenna Grace, and Teo Briones.

If you think it sounds like I’m being dismissive, it’s reflective of how little this film cares to make these characters mean anything. Somehow, the main ‘hero’ bunch are written worse than they were in the first film. It’s not only that they’re blander, but also that they’re so stupid. For this film’s plot to work, Abby must regress and both her and Mike must effectively pretend that the events of the first film weren’t incredibly traumatising. If that wasn’t bad enough, the story ties itself in knots making it seem that Abby needs friends, even though she seems to be doing fine at school and at home, all so when the ghost kids come a-calling (it’s the Marionette manipulating her), she will run off to help free them. All while Mike has been lying to her about what actually happened to animatronics/ghost kids from the first film.

If you’re wondering why he would do that, you’re not the only one. It makes no sense, but very little does here. Such as why anyone would trust the character of Vanessa and why, we the viewer, are supposed to feel sorry for her as she works through her daddy issues. Though, at least that gives her some form of character development and the film an opportunity to showcase the star power of Matthew Lillard. This stuff, at least, has meaning but it is delivered in a really disjointed way, which like so much of this film, results in irritation.

Irritation like a finale that beggar’s belief. Not just from a character stupidity standpoint, but from a believability standpoint. Which, I know sounds absurd considering the subject matter, but Five Nights at Freddy’s sets itself in the real world, so much so that a major plot point of the film revolves around Abby and a science fair, run by an obnoxious teacher (Wayne Knight) who doesn’t want her to take part. This really is the level that this film aims for.

Bigger and bolder, right? Which, early on, does seem to be the goal. With the film hinting towards an animatronic rampage (something the trailer also sold) at the FazFest festival. Spoilers: this does not happen and the only reason it exists is for the trailer shot of Freddy walking through the crowd. In fact, action set-pieces are really few and far between, with Vanessa having one decent one involving a damaged Foxy and Mike having a very traditional game experience with another set of animatronics. Bigger and bolder, though? Not even close and the fact that film then peters out with the most ‘to be continued’ ending seen in some time, makes it even more insulting.

We shouldn’t get a third film. The franchise doesn’t deserve one. Except, this film has made money already, a ton of money, so no doubt we will. Honestly, it’s enough to make you despair. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 isn’t just a bad sequel, it’s a bad film overall.