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By Keith Walther | Rose Law Group Reporter
Just when you thought nothing could be nearly as bad as the first one, this film comes along and surpasses it in every way possible. “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” is the unwanted and unneeded sequel to the 2023 horror film from, you guessed it, the ultimate purveyors of cheap horror flicks, Blumhouse Productions. From “Drop” to “The Woman in the Yard” to “M3GAN 2.0,” and now this, Blumhouse’s goal is seemingly to torture its audiences with hot garbage this year.
Following the animatronic nightmare of the last film, Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) try to put their lives back together. Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) has the added daddy/daughter issues on top of the trauma she experienced, but despite the constant nightmares, she pursues a more romantic relationship with Mike. Unfortunately for them, there are more skeletons and ghosts in the closet that come out with a fury, once again inhabiting those lumbering animatronic animals. This time, there are fewer rules in place to carry out their murderous plot.
Once again Emma Tammi directs, and she not only learned nothing from the mistakes of her first effort, but she doubled down, making the same mistakes for this sequel and making them somehow worse. Even though she was given a budget of $51 million, which is the most expensive Blumhouse production to date, she somehow made it feel cheaper than the first film. Based on the video game series, it seems Emma’s primary focus is to provide fan service throughout rather than weaving a cohesive storyline. As a result, fans’ joy at seeing some of their favorite characters from the game come to life on the big screen is completely deflated by their lackluster usage and rushed introductions.
Then there’s Emma’s haplessly incompetent attempts to create compelling mysterious intrigue and horror. Once again, she incorporates obvious jump scares with no technique, leaving the audience more annoyed than startled. The setups, suspense sequences, and key plot points are so lazily crafted that they create silly, illogical moments that a young child would have difficulty believing. For instance, the animatronic monstrosities feature boomingly loud steps anytime they move, except apparently when they move in for a kill. At that point, they become quiet as a mouse and miraculously appear directly behind their intended victim. Somehow, when the main character dons one of the mascot heads, the killer machine inhabited by a ghost thinks it’s an ally and leaves him alone. There’s even a point when a lapse in wireless signal makes the animatronics shut down as if they were not actually powered by ghosts. These are just some of the insults to intelligence perpetrated by this clueless director that elicit audible groans from the audience, especially after the logic-flawed climax.
The same cast is retained from the first film, which is usually a good thing, but in this instance, it drastically worsens the film. The dialogue writing is cringingly bad, but the actors accentuate the embarrassment with their ineffectual line delivery. Josh Hutcherson once again cannot believably portray himself as the older brother character, let alone convincingly show terror in the presence of these oversized mechanical Muppets. Piper Rubio is a young actress who hasn’t developed her craft enough to rise her performance above the miserable script. And in a repeat performance of her previous effort, Elizabeth Lail’s robotic line delivery leads to a soulless, one-dimensional portrayal of her character. Not even the return of Matthew Lillard and the addition of fellow “Scream” alum Skeet Ulrich, along with Wayne Knight (aka Newman of “Seinfeld”) can elevate the production quality.
This sequel is not even watchable enough to stream for free via Tubi, let alone endure at a movie theater. “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” is like five nights in Wichita, Kansas, extremely boring and uneventful with the only scary element being why you ended up there in the first place. As Phone Guy from the video game would say, “Most people don’t last this long. I mean, you know, they usually move on to other things by now.” Take his advice and move on from this horrendous franchise.
This movie earns:
