Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (2025), Dir Emma Tammi, Universal Pictures, 2☆☆. Review: Matthew Alicoon.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (2025), Dir Emma Tammi, Universal Pictures, 2☆☆.
Review: Matthew Alicoon.
Running Time: 104 Minutes
“Crafted with care, written without conviction.”
Set one year after the events of Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023) that involved a nightmare encounter at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The sequel follows Abby (Piper Rubio), as she reconnects with her animatronic friends, leading to escalations that reveal the origins of Freddy’s.
From its opening moments, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 once again demonstrates the spectacular conceptualisation by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, stunningly bringing these characters to life on screen. Under the guidance of lead designer Robert Bennett each creation moves with a distinctive physical grammar, occupying the frame with a sustained presence. The opening sequence sets up huge potential with a striking hyperrealism, as the prologue is built around one of the core narrative principles being how the spirits of children can possess these animatronics. There is also a sequence involving Mike (Josh Hutcherson) that channels the disorientation and dread reminiscence of the first game from my experience. For a moment, the film appeared to be attempting to push the material into more unsettling territory.
Yet beyond these early strengths, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 descends into an experience that tests patience rather than tension. Three central failings dominate the film that become overbearing. The problems are clutches the film just cannot escape. With original game developer Scott Cawthon assuming sole writing duties this time, it contrasts from the original film. Cawthon was one of the co-writers for the original alongside Emma Tammi and Seth Cuddeback. This time the script feels startlingly underdeveloped – expanding the lore through blunt exposition that feels derivative. Character interactions were resembled in a way that their dialogue scarcely resembles human interactions. The world-building becomes convoluted and dumbfounding, collapsing under the weight of its unfocused mythology.
The film also suffers significantly from the restraints of the rating. Despite a 15 certificate in the UK, this is arguably the horror property I have most felt the American PG 13 rating come into play. It feels unmistakably a horror film that is not made for a horror audience. The violence is diminished, the kills feel abbreviated and the mechanical brutality of the animatronics lacks gnarly brutality. The result is a strange tonal inconsistency: a story predicated on monstrous machinery that rarely permits itself to feel genuinely dangerous.
However, the final act of the film reaches a new height of stupidity. The final act is the pinnacle of the film feeling the most bewildering. The climax spirals into a massively ill-judged sequence that is embarrassing. What emerges from this, is less of a resemblance of terror but more of a pantomime imitation of it. The escalation feels so thinly justified, that the closing moments feel incredibly dramatically hollow. It just feels so undeserving.
What begins with glimmers of promise in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 collapses into a horror film defined by the lack of tension, inconsistently developed characters, and a childlike perception of horror. The concept for this franchise feels untapped potential, as the film lacks any commitment to the severity of what the material demands.
Cast
Josh Hutcherson as Mike Schmidt
Elizabeth Lail as Vanessa Shelly
Piper Rubio as Abby Schmidt
Freddy Carter as Michael Afton
Theodus Crane as Jeremiah
Wayne Knight as Mr. Berg
Teo Briones as Alex
McKenna Grace as Lisa
Skeet Ulrich as Henry Emily
Matthew Lillard as William Afton
Crew
Director – Emma Tammi
Screenwriter – Scott Cawthon
Producers – Scott Cawthon & Jason Blum
Cinematographer – Lyn Moncrief
Editors - Timothy Alverson & Derek Larsen
Music – Newton Brothers