Five Nights at Freddy’s 2: A Boring and Confusing Sequel

When the first Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was released, it was a massive commercial success despite critical panning. For the inevitable sequel, Blumhouse increased the budget (reportedly to more than $40 million) and handed the writing reins to franchise creator Scott Cawthon. The promise was simple: listen to fan feedback, up the scares, and lean into the lore.

Our team at TheBigBois sat down to watch Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, hoping that the increased resources and creator control would result in a satisfying horror experience. Instead, we were treated to one of the most boring, nonsensical, and utterly toothless horror sequels in recent memory.

A Plot Lost in the Static

The narrative picks up one year after the first film, but you would be forgiven for thinking you walked into a daytime soap opera. The story is a tangled web of dream sequences, “long-lost brother” twists that feel ripped from a telenovela, and family drama that drags on for interminable stretches.

The film attempts a retcon early on, claiming the pizzeria from the first movie wasn’t the “real” location, setting up a new “original” Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. While the trailer teased a terrifying ghost-hunting expedition in this new location, that sequence lasts only a few minutes. The vast majority of the runtime is spent away from the animatronics, focusing on Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and Vanessa as they navigate a “will-they-won’t-they” dynamic that lacks chemistry or emotional weight.

The “Horror” of Ghost Wi-Fi

The most baffling aspect of FNAF 2 is its complete inability to be scary. For a franchise built on the visceral tension of jump scares, this film is shockingly sedate. The kills are largely bloodless or happen off-screen—characters are pulled behind curtains or dragged underwater, robbing the audience of any payoff.

The writing reaches a nadir with the introduction of “Ghost Wi-Fi.” In one of the most laughable sequences we’ve ever seen in a horror movie, the supernatural threat is treated like IT support issues. At one point, Mike literally navigates a Windows computer menu to “shut off” the ghosts. It shatters any immersion and turns the supernatural threat into a joke. When your horror movie resolves tension by clicking through a settings menu, you have failed.

Wasted Potential

Visually, the film has its moments. The animatronics, courtesy of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, look fantastic. The Marionette, a fan-favorite character, makes its debut and offers the film’s only genuinely creepy imagery—particularly during a possession sequence in which the actor mimics a puppet’s movements.

However, these moments are fleeting. The film is stuffed with cameos from YouTubers and legacy actors (like Scream’s Skeet Ulrich), but they serve no narrative purpose beyond making the audience point at the screen. The dialogue often feels like characters are talking past each other, making baffling decisions solely to move the plot toward a setup for a third movie.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is a “content” movie rather than a film. It exists to sell merchandise and set up the next installment, but it forgets to tell a coherent or scary story in the process. It is tedious, confusing, and fundamentally misunderstands what makes horror effective. Even for die-hard fans of the lore, the clumsy execution and lack of scares make this a slog to get through.