Main cast: Josh Hutcherson (Mike Schmidt), Elizabeth Lail (Vanessa Shelly), Piper Rubio (Abby Schmidt), Mckenna Grace (Lisa), Freddy Carter (Michael Afton), Theodus Crane (Jeremiah), Teo Briones (Alex), Wayne Knight (Mr Berg), Skeet Ulrich (Henry Emily), and Matthew Lillard (William Afton)
Director: Emma Tammi
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, or as I like to call it, Groundhog Night at the Animatronic Pizzeria, is what it would be like to watch a horror movie on infinite repeat.
This is not so much a sequel as it is a cruel joke: same restaurant, same murderous robots, same shell-shocked hero, same audience nausea, just with a new ghost kid thrown in for “freshness”.
Charlotte, our young specter of vengeance, is here to remind us that adult incompetence is apparently a franchise-worthy plot point. She haunts the Marionette because… well, she was ignored before. Why she waited two years to start a massacre? That’s never explained. But hey, mystery.
Mike Schmidt, our tireless protagonist, continues to look like he just saw the literal embodiment of regret in the mirror. His sister Abby, bless her eternally annoying soul, insists he go back and fix the same animatronics that somehow survived the last movie’s massacre.
When Mike sensibly refuses — because yes, common sense still exists in some pocket of reality — Abby promptly dashes into mortal peril, because of course kid characters exist only to make you scream “WHY?!” at the screen.
Meanwhile, Vanessa is floating around, doing mysterious things, acting surprised at every terrible revelation, and generally proving that keeping a homicidal family secret is a career in itself.
Abby, in the meantime, befriends the Marionette like it’s a golden retriever puppy, blissfully unaware that she’s just signed up for an animatronic bloodbath. Yes, of course, this disarms the failsafe that keeps her friends from going full slasher mode.
Predictable? Absolutely. Funny in the way a head-on collision is funny? Only if your sense of humor is fueled by frustration and despair.
The plot is a marvel of déjà vu. The character development is… well, nonexistent. Mike stares in horror, Vanessa acts shocked, the Marionette pops back to life by the end, and William Afton also does his patented SURPRISE I’M STILL ALIVE routine by the end.
By the time the credits roll, we are back at square one, staring at the same nightmare buffet like an audience of masochists.
In short, if you’ve seen the first movie and enjoyed it, you may find a perverse thrill in watching the same insanity repeat itself. If you’ve seen it and didn’t, then strap in, because this sequel has the subtlety of a chainsaw and the originality of a recycled jump scare.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2: all the terror, none of the progress, infinite loop sold separately.
