December 6, 2025
One year after the events of the first movie, Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) was still having nightmares about her father William Afton (Matthew Lillard) and his murderous acts. Meanwhile, Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) still took care of his younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio), who was a devoted fan of the original Freddy Fazbear animatronic characters. One day, Toy Chica (voiced by Megan Fox) called Abby on her FazTalker radio toy.
Despite negative reviews, the first "Five Nights at Freddy's" film (Emma Tammi, 2023, MY REVIEW) earned back almost 15x its original production cost and is Blumhouse's top-grossing film of all time. "Five Nights at Freddy's" was originally a video game series about a night security guard trying to survive being killed by animatronic characters of a pizza shop. Game creator Scott Cawthon himself wrote the screenplay of the first film, as well as this sequel.
We actually see three different versions of the main animatronic quartet in this sequel. The main set we mainly see are the newer-looking Toy versions of Freddy, Chica and Bonnie, and Foxy (the jump-scary Mangle). We also see the scarier-looking Withered versions, prototypes cannibalized for spare parts, in the basement. The original versions make a brief, but surprisingly emotional appearance. Their "acting" was actually better than the human actors.
For a Gen X'ers like me, it was good to see three actors from notable 1990s suspense films again. Matthew Lillard (Shaggy of "Scooby Doo") reprised his role as William Afton. Skeet Ulrich (Billy Loomis of "Scream") played the role of Henry Emily, father of Charlotte, the angry anti-parents spirit in the scary Marionette. Wayne Knight (Dennis Nedry in "Jurassic Park") was once again an irritating nerd, Abby's middle-school science teacher Mr. Berg.
Like the first film, this sequel will be better appreciated by fans of the FNaF video game than those who have no knowledge of the game at all. I have never played the game, so I was only introduced to the franchise via the 2023 film. My sons, who are very familiar with the game, had fun excitedly recognizing various cameos (of Circus Baby, Balloon Boy, and another major one revealed at the mid-credit extra scene) that all drew a blank for me.
There was a whole big to-do about a town festival called FazFest dedicated to the local lore surrounding these animatronic characters. There was even a scene where Toy Freddie was walking among the crowd at the festival. However, all of this build-up of a horrific bloody massacre went to naught as the climax only occurred in the Schmidt house -- such a waste of a potential Grand-Guignol type finale. I rate this a 4/10. My sons rated it only a 5/10.
