What scares you the most? Blood, zombies, or maybe animatronic jump scares? Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, the sequel to the first movie has them all. The films are both adaptations of the FNAF games of the same name.
Directed by Emma Tammi, FNAF 2 is a supernatural horror and thriller film featuring haunted animatronics, jump scares, and lore, different from the games but features the same events.
Scott Cawthon, the creator of both the games told the production crew how he wanted the movie. Josh Hutcherson comes back as Mike Schmidt, brother of Abby Schmidt (Piper Rubio). Elizabeth Lail returns as Vanessa Afton, daughter of William Afton (Matthew Lillard), the overarching antagonist of the FNAF games and movies.
The FNAF 2 movie focuses on toy animatronics. Vanessa’s trauma from her father, William Afton’s backstory, and Charlotte’s anger towards the adults who failed to help her when she was dying. Charlotte Emily (Audrey Lynn Marie) is the daughter of Henry Emily (Skeet Ulrich), William’s business partner, who dies trying to save a boy from the Yellow Rabbit, which is an animatronic suit worn by William Afton as a disguise used to kill children.
One thing I loved about this movie is the effort and detail put into each animatronic to make them as close as possible to the games. They are super cool to see on the big screen, especially the withered animatronics that, in the movie, are used as prototypes for spare parts for the toy animatronics. All the withereds have accurate body designs realistic to the games. The Interaction between Vanessa and her nightmares and hallucinations of her father who has a dominant and authoritarian control over Vanessa was another highlight of the movie.
One shortcoming was that the movie has different lore than the games that gamers have spent a lot of time trying to figure out. In the games Mike Schmidt is just an alias for Michael Afton, who is the main protagonist in the games trying to figure out his father’s bad deeds and end his father’s reign of terror. In the film, Michael Afton (Freddy Carter) is a separate character but still very prominent in the movie. Also in the games Vanessa isn’t William’s daughter and is just a corrupt follower but the movie makes up for it with the character dynamics.
I personally loved this movie and the fans did too and I believe the crew did a really good job. Many people, including critics, didn’t like the movie, which is understandable to new watchers or people who don’t know FNAF. In total I would give this movie a 4 out of 5 stars.
