Five Nights at Freddy's 2

1982. At a Freddy Fazbear’s location there sits a young girl, dressed in black and gray, her hail in pigtails, sitting in front of the Fazbear’s stage, waiting and waiting; her name is Charlotte. One of her classmates, Vanessa, comes over and tells her that sitting in front of the stage won’t make the animatronic, the Marionette, come up from beneath the stage any faster. “Come sit with us at the birthday party table.” Charlotte doesn’t budge an inch.

Just then, Charlotte sees something out of the ordinary. Next to the stage she witness’ a man in a large character suit grabbing a young boy and bringing him to the back rooms. Charlotte does everything she can think of; she tries to get the attention of the workers and the parents who just shove her off as some annoying little girl. Charlotte decides she needs to rescue the boy herself, and so she does, but at a cost. As she runs from the man while carrying the boy, she is stabbed in the back multiple times. She makes it to the stage with the boy and lets off a large scream as the Marionette rises from the stage and carries Charlotte’s body beneath the stage.

2002. It’s been twenty years since that horrible incident took the life of young Charlotte, and Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) remembers every moment, in both her waking and in her sleep. On top of that, her murderous father from the first film keeps appearing in her dreams, reminding her of destiny, to become him and take on the family legacy of killing children and hiding their bodies inside the animatronics at Fazbears. Vanessa shrugs this off saying she’s better than her father and won’t make the same mistakes and choices he did.

Meanwhile, Mike (Josh Hutcherson) has tried to move forward from saving Abby from her murderous “friends” (the animatronics that came to life and tried to kill Abby in the first movie). In a very unsual, and even distrubing way, Abby wants to return to Fazbear’s to reunite with her friends. Mike lies to her and says he hasn’t gotten around to fixing the animatronics but that when he does they can discuss going to see them. In truth, though, Mike just wants to leave the past in the past.

But you see, the past always has a way of catching up. Something that is forgotten is never truly gone, and the things we think are gone lie in sleep, waiting for the right moment to reappear, and in Mike and Abby’s case, reappear they will.

Here’s the truth: “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” (or FNAF 2 for short) is an absolute dumpster fire. Apart from the visceral and disturbing content that occurs to both supporting and main characters, the plot is paper thin, weak, and branches off into multiple, illogical directions. I get that with a horror/slasher/video game film things aren’t supposed to be logical, per se, but conversations, like the ones between Mike and Vanessa, have very little context or at best suffer from really bad, awkward screenwriting.

At times, many of the performances are either forced, monotonous or just lacking any character depth. No one really stops to reflect on the events from the first film with the exception of one or two very brief moments. None of these characters have really grown much in terms of experience, knowledge or wisdom from the first film. They go and make the same mistakes they did before.

But one performance in this entire film annoyed me to no end, and that was that of the actress who played Abby (Piper Rubio). Oh my word, Abby’s conversational tone is as flat as a pancake. There’s no emotion behind anything she says, and when she does try to sound sincere it comes off, again, forced and very monotone. Every time she spoke I thought, “This is the best the casting director could do?” I don’t really blame her completely though as, as I said earlier, the writing is so weak she wasn’t given much to work with.

Josh Hutcherson is probably the only person in this entire film that actually uses the dialog to his advantage. Elizabeth Lail portrays her character as moody, annoyed and a victim when, in truth, Vanessa has also been keeping massive secrets from everyone herself, so the whole “I’m the victim” spiel doesn’t really work.

I guess if I had to find one positive thing to take away about the film, it is perhaps some really creepy moments as the camera slowly looks around both the Fazbears’ locations, and indeed the setting reminds of an abandoned Chuck E. Cheeses from the 80s and 90s (which is kind of the whole joke, I get it), except these animatronics are out to kill everyone (the only thing Chuck E. Cheese animatronics were guilty of was telling some bad jokes).

Objectionable Material

PROFANITY: J*sus (1), Jeez or Jes… (1), H*ly Sh*t (1), What the H*ll (2), Where the H*ll (1)

VULGARITY: WTF (1, cut off), Sh*t (4), You’re such a “d*ck” (1), Crazy Eyes (2), A**hole (1), J*ck A** (1)

VIOLENCE: Very Heavy. A students recounts brutal events of the 1st FNAF, in graphic detail. A marionette comes to life and kills someone offscreen (we see the corpse later). An animatronic attacks a cameraman and dismembers him offscreen. Mini-marionette dolls attack another crewmember and pull him into the water, slicing him and killing him (we see the water turn red). A character pulls a gun on someone by accident. Young Vanessa, in a dream, tries to hide from her murderous father. In the same dream, she becomes an adult and shoots her father, who falls off a balcony and dies.

An animatronic attacks another person offscreen. The Possessed Marionette holds Vanessa up in the air and chokes her to keep her from talking. A character is pulled through a glass door by an animatronic. Later the animatronic squeezes his head until it breaks, killing the character. An animatronic tells some kids he has to go pull the heads off of some very bad people. Innocent couples are nearly attacked by murderous animatronics. The Marionette attacks a young girl offscreen. Animatronics are seen destroying other animatronics. A young girl watches a man in a character suit abduct another child. She tries to run from the kidnapper while carrying the boy victim, but is stabbed in the back multiple times by the kidnapper; she screams, collapses and is taken by the Marionette animatronic.

OCCULT/CONTENT THAT MOCK’S CHRISTIANITY: Characters become possessed by the animatronic (which itself is possessed by a ghost). There is a show about ghost hunting/paranormal investigations and visiting haunted locations, and we witness the show’s characters abandoning places, even admitting they broke into several locations

OTHER: A science teacher calls Abby a freak and an embarrassment to the entire school district. A teacher strongly and repeatedly discourages Abby from submitting her project for the science fair, claiming Abby needs to think what’s best for the school’s image. When Abby shows up to the fair with a small robot, the teacher purposely drops the robot, smashing it to pieces. Mike has been lying to Abby about going to fix the animatronics. Abby sneaks out of the house on two different instances. Mike and Abby steal a prize from an abandoned Fazzbears. Mike mentions he’s trying to fix everyone, including Vanessa. From time to time we see the insides of the animatronics and missing fur, which may be frightening at times.

There are no redeeming morals I can draw from this film.

Final Thoughts

FNAF 2 is an absolute mess from beginning to end. The plot is lost about 10 minutes into the film, especially when characters split up to go and do their various tasks. The dialog is painfully flat and lethargic. Additionally, there is far more violence in this film than the first FNAF and while some may find that a plus, I find it deplorable. This is certainly NOT a film for children or adults, period.

The ending of the film hints at a possible THIRD FNAF. I certainly hope not. The first one was silly, the second a mess, and I can only imagine what kind of disaster the FNAF 3 would be. Maybe things really should just be left in the past.

• Violence: Very Heavy
• Occult: Moderately Heavy
• Profane language: Moderate
• Vulgar/Crude language: Moderate
• Wokeism: Minor
• Nudity: None
• Sex: None
• Drugs/Alcohol: None

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.