Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Last weekend, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, the newest film in the popular franchise, was released in theaters. I derived enough enjoyment from the original movie, and it also made a substantial profit for its budget, so I was curious to see how the second film would turn out. I have not played any of the games, so my knowledge of the material is solely limited to what I remembered from the first film.

I thought that this film was a bit of a step back from the original film. The film does have a few good moments. I thought every time the Marionette was on screen was very effective and scary. I also thought the scenes at Freddy Fazbears were very intense and captured the creepiness well. The movie was toeing that line between PG-13 and R, which I thought was a wise way to go. I thought the animatronics looked really cool. I read that the Jim Henson company helped develop them, which just adds to the fun of them. It is nice to see a movie take a lower budget and make something with cool visuals.

However, the good moments are few and far between, which is what makes this movie not very good. We don't even see Freddy's or the animatronics until about 45 minutes into the movie. When a movie is a sequel like this, they shouldn't need to waste so much time on setup and can just get into the horror action. The movie also seems to be unsure who they want the main villain to be. One character is introduced towards the beginning and isn't seen again or has any role in the story until the final 5 minutes of the film. The film then shifts to the Marionette, who just gets forgotten in the final 5 minutes. This film reminds me a lot of Halloween Kills, and not in a good way. It feels like an in-between film. It seems like the writers wanted to make this a trilogy, but needed something to fill the middle film. The villains seem like they are just set up for the next film, and the characters don't turn out any different than when they started. The movie also has such an abrupt ending. There is no closing note; the movie just cuts and ends. It was very strange.

Overall, the film does have a few good moments. There weren't enough good moments to outweigh the filler story and one-dimensional characters. I wasn't expecting a profound plot or anything, but there should be enough Freddy stuff in it to make it entertaining, and this film just doesn't deliver enough of that.

Score: 5.5/10 Grade: C

Recommendation: Wait to stream it unless you are a huge fan of the franchise.