Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Review

If you had told me back in 2023 that I would actually enjoy a movie version of Five Nights at Freddy’s, I would have told you you were crazy. However, surprisingly enough, I had a pretty fun time with the first Five Nights at Freddy’s, a fanservice-heavy, but still cohesive, and surprisingly emotionally-resonant horror movie, that capitalised well on one of horror’s most powerful franchises. However, much like with the games, once you move past the first entry in the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, the novelty starts to fade away, and cracks in the genius premise begin to show. In short, I expected Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, to be a bad movie, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad.

Today, it’s time for our Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 review. I’ll be completely avoiding any spoilers in this review, mainly because so much of this movie’s merit relies on you being surprised by cameos and easter eggs, so feel free to read ahead if you want the scoop on this movie before going to see it for yourself. Now, let’s dive into the review and talk about Five Nights at Freddy’s 2!

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Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Review

Image by Universal Pictures

So, the first Five Nights at Freddy’s was a solid movie, a fun thrill ride, with a solidly sad backstory to it, if nothing else. However, it’s no secret that as the Five Nights at Freddy’s games trudged on, what began as pretty strong lore turned into a convoluted mess, and character-focused storytelling was substituted for the addition of more, and more, and even more, animatronics. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, unfortunately, follows the trajectory of this franchise’s history in the gaming industry, because this is a bad, bad, movie, almost surprisingly so. In fact, considering we’re in December, I can say with confidence that this will be appearing on my ‘worst movies of the year’ list later this month, and though I didn’t exactly have confidence in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, it is disappointing to see this unfold like this.

The main reason that I had a hard time with Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is because when it comes to both writing and acting, this is a pretty abysmal movie, a film that feels like a high-school theatre production in every way except for budget, with impressive visuals masking the inconsistent and laughable storytelling going on underneath. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 shoots itself in the foot a little by being a kid-focused horror movie, but not having any strong child actors to support it. This is especially damaging to this movie when you consider that it’s simultaneously releasing alongside both Stranger Things, and IT: Welcome to Derry, two horror shows that have done a far better job at presenting a convincing child cast than Five Nights at Freddy’s 2.

Piper Rubio is not great here, which brings me no joy to say, considering I think she did a pretty good job the first time around. I do wonder how much of this is to blame on her though, and how much is thanks to the incredibly choppy dialogue, writing so bad that it even drags down the seasoned actors in this cast. Back to Rubio though, through no fault of her own, she’s also far too old at this point to be saying and doing some of the things she does in this film. I’m terrible at guessing what age child characters are meant to be in movies, but Abby’s behaviour in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is almost infantile, with even her classmates coming across as well-adjusted adults, as opposed to her strange obsession with A.I. voices, and foolish romps through areas that she knows are dangerous. Child characters make bad decisions in horror movies, this is a known trope. However, it’s important to get the audience to sympathise with them, so that blind rage doesn’t prevent the character from being enjoyed.

Image by Universal Pictures

That’s one of the biggest issues with kid-centric horror movies like this. If you’re not careful, you can end up getting hit with a double whammy of questionable acting, and questionable decisions, and it’s very easy to completely write a character off when these things are combined. All in all, whether you’re talking about the strangely infantilised Abby, the completely non-communicative Vanessa, or the embarrassingly inconsistent Mike, the characters in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 are infuriating, almost every single one of them. Only the side characters in this movie, who barely get any screen time, are actually enjoyable to watch, namely Theodus Crane’s Jeremiah, and the despicably entertaining Mr. Berg, played by Wayne Knight.

Again, this is not necessarily the fault of the actors. In fact, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 has a serious issue when it comes to wasting any of the talent that they do have on board. Josh Hutcherson is extremely talented, and yet in this movie, when he’s not infuriating the audience with his nonsensical logic, he’s doing nothing at all to progress the plot. Matthew Lillard returns, and is easily the best part of this movie for the brief moments he appears, starring in what is easily Five Nights at Freddy’s 2‘s coolest sequence. However, he’s gone before you even get a chance to miss him. And don’t get me started on Mckenna Grace, who was completely wasted, in what could have been a very interesting new role, played by an actress who is both talented, and beloved. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 seems to put all of its eggs in the baskets of its weaker actors, such as Elizabeth Lail and Freddy Carter, which I don’t understand at all when you have Hutcherson, Grace, and Lillard, on standby.

With Hutcherson in mind, let’s talk about Mike Schmidt, easily the biggest downgrade when it comes to comparing the first Five Nights at Freddy’s movie to this one. Mike does get some cool moments near the end of this movie, but for so much of the runtime, he is bizarrely absent from the whole affair, which makes no sense for those of us who consider him the main character of this franchise. If I can discuss a minor spoiler for a moment, there’s one scene in particular where Mike goes to retrieve Abby from the pizzeria, and when Vanessa warns him that she went there again in a scene that happens 20 minutes later, he shuts her down and implies that Vanessa is the problem. Hutcherson is really fighting against some of the most nonsensical and soulless writing I’ve seen this year in this movie, and it’s a miracle he’s even able to stay afloat. In some ways, his pushback against Five Nights at Freddy’s 2‘s abysmal dialogue is a testament to his talent as an actor, but I’m not so sure that that’s an accolade that this movie should be proud to receive.

Image by Universal Pictures

Moving on from the characters, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 doesn’t fare much better on the story side of things. This movie is paced awfully, with the first 30 minutes being such a painful slog, I can’t believe it wasn’t slimmed down in post-production, considering the target audience of this movie is likely teenagers with the attention spans of fruit flies. Nothing even remotely scary happens for the first half hour of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, and though it was a nice reprieve from the relentless jumpscares that this franchise is known for, when those first 30 minutes are instead populated by the stiffest dialogue you’ve ever heard, it makes you miss the cheapness of a good old-fashioned screamer jumpscare.

Things don’t get much better once the ‘horror’ kicks off in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 though, as the scares here are both predictable and unengaging. It’s made painfully obvious when certain characters are introduced into this movie purely to be killed-off. The kills themselves are also boring, and though I could forgive this by attributing their censorship to the fact that Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is a child-friendly movie, there’s a level of brutality going on here that I actually think nullifies this movie as being ‘for kids’. Most of the dialogue and storytelling is definitely intended for a younger audience, but the occasional scene of intense violence sort of muddles who exactly this is for. I think even teens will scoff at some of this movie’s cornier moments, and as for adults, I don’t think anything in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is going to engage you – unless you’re a fan of the games.

Yes, it’s clear that Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is a movie ‘for the fans’, which I’m sure will earn it more than enough blind renown on social media to justify a third movie, and disregard any actual criticism of it. With the games in mind, let’s talk about lore, as Five Nights at Freddy’s fans love to do. The game lore is fairly beloved, with a titanic collection of games, books, comics, and even toys, bringing the world of Five Nights at Freddy’s to life. However, I think that bringing that same lore to the big-screen has really started to show the cracks in it, especially when references are ham-fistedly shoved into a script. Game lore and film lore will always be vastly different, which is why game-to-screen adaptations so often fail. The first Five Nights at Freddy’s movie managed to pull off the transition by only adapting the most simply, baseline elements of the Five Nights at Freddy’s lore. Here though, things get way too complicated for their own good, and leave me very worried for when the next movie inevitably releases.

Image by Universal Pictures

In so many ways, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is not only appealing to the fans who are already familiar with the lore of this universe, but it is relying on them. Things happen in this movie that I’m somewhat familiar with, purely because I was a horror fan on the internet in the mid-2010s, but that an outsider looking-in will be completely baffled by. One scene in particular involves an animatronic from Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location, and though I understood the implication of its appearance, if I knew nothing about Five Nights at Freddy’s, that scene would have left me scratching my head, wondering what I had missed. So little is explained in this movie, as Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 seems to rely on you already knowing about all of these animatronics, and instead of explaining them to viewers, this film simply throws them on-screen and hopes for the best from their hapless fanservice.

The worst part is, it’s likely to work. I’m sure that Five Nights at Freddy’s fans will have a lot of great things to say about Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. They’re likely to fall in love with the new batch of animatronics, as they’re brought to the screen fairly faithfully, and I’m sure that the constant references to the games will elicit cheers in your screening. However, for non-fans, I really don’t think you’re going to get anything out of this. It’s largely a muddled, unexplained, uninspired mess, with some great visuals sure, but practically nothing original to say or do. To their credit, the ending of the movie introduces some fun ideas and environments, and from a special effects perspective, you can’t fault the movie for how it has brought the animatronics from the Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 game to life. These are things that fans are likely to appreciate though, and I’m sure that if you are a fan, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 will get some knowing chuckles out of you. If you’re not though, this movie is kind of a disaster, and that’s a real shame.

So ultimately, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is a mess, a cavalcade of ham-fisted lore, shameless references, mediocre acting, and unoriginality. If you’re a dedicated fan of the franchise, go check it out, because I’m sure you’ll at least get a kick out of how dedicated to the source material this movie is. However, if you’re completely unfamiliar with the games, I think you’re safe to skip this one. What did you think of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2? Be sure to let us know, and thanks for reading our review!

See also: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery Review

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Where to Watch Five Nights at Freddy’s 2?

Image by Universal Pictures

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 releases today, December 5, 2025, in theatres. If the movie follows the timing of its predecessor, we’re likely to see a streaming release in early February, 2026.

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