Ticketworthy! - Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Deciding how to feel about an adaptation of a beloved piece of media like the Five Nights at Freddy’s horror video game franchise can be a challenge. How similar should one expect the film to be to the source material? After all, there are always going to be changes that have to be made in order to fit the story into a film instead of an interactive game. If the movie isn’t particularly faithful, but is good and well made, that should probably count for something. Luckily, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 doesn’t force that dilemma on its audience. Yes, it ignores or outright butchers the lore from the games to an upsetting degree. However, it also has the decency to be just awful in general. I appreciate the film for making itself easy to review, if nothing else.

Picking up after the events of the first film, the sequel once again follows security guard Mike (Josh Hutcherson), his younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio), and his kind-of girlfriend Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) as they deal with ghosts of dead children haunting animatronic suits. This time around the threat comes from a ghost named Charlotte (Audry Lynn-Marie), one of the first children murdered at the original Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, who wants to escape the restaurant and take revenge on the people who didn’t save her.

The story kind of almost makes sense provided you don’t think too hard about it. Why does Charlotte target random people who had nothing to do with her death? Why not the people actually responsible? How in the world does nobody remember there were multiple locations of this incredibly popular restaurant chain? If you want to have any fun at all, you’re better off just not asking questions because the movie has no answers.

One might hope that the actors could at least salvage something out of the nonsensical plot. There is a good amount of talent in the cast, most of whom have solid horror movie credentials. Which is why I am going to assume that it’s the script and direction that let them down, because nobody is delivering a great performance. I’m not entirely sure what an actor could do with dialogue this clunky and action this dull and silly, but if there was a way to make it work, they did not find it.

The directing and sound design do few favors for the movie either. It’s not the worst constructed movie, but nothing stands out as interesting or original. For what is essentially an entry-level horror movie, that’s fine. It’s good to introduce the established tropes to people who haven’t seen them before. It just does nothing to elevate a movie that desperately needed some elevation.

The lone bright spot may be the visuals. The restaurants are realized beautifully and are suitably whimsical and spooky at the same time. We don’t spend all that much time in them, which is a shame, but they look great. Also excellent once again are the animatronics and the monster design. The new suits look fantastic and blend seamlessly into the world, really selling the danger they present. I absolutely loved Charlotte’s look both as the Marionette and as a ghost possessing people. She’s very creepy. It’s a stellar design.

That is the full extent of praise I can give the film, though. The monster design is really good. The story, the directing, the acting, literally every other element of this film is a disaster. Its predecessor wasn’t exactly a masterpiece, but I left Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 with a newfound appreciation for the first film. At least it wasn’t this. It’s unclear what causes the victims in these movies to come back as ghosts, but whatever it is it needs to stop. This one should stay dead.