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This mornig I posted on how I wastch both movies back to back and after watching the sequel Five Nights at Freddys 2 that took them about 3 years to come up with well the results were not the best as I think now the movie took the other end of the rope and Blumhouse made a choice here that is going to piss off a lot of people who are not deep into the games, this whole thing feels like they went all in on pleasing the hardcore game crowd and basically said screw it to everyone else. The movie does not hold your hand at all, if you have not done your homework watching three hour lore videos on YouTube or played every single game in the series you are going feel a bit lost sometimes as I felt like the movie lack some context. They throw in toy animatronics, the marionette puppet thing and all these character reveals that make zero sense unless you already know the backstory from outside the movie, witch is honestly kind of ballsy but also kind of annoying depending on where you look at it from. I respect that they picked a side and decided to go full fan service mode, first because the previous movie had that big flaw that didnt know what it wanted to be and second because those people have been keeping FNAF alive for years and deserve content made for them, but it does leave casuals sitting there like what the hell is going on. The opening scene was actually really damn good with the 1982 flashback to the original Freddy Fazbears Pizza showing how Charlotte Emily died trying to save a kid from William Afton, that whole sequence that gives you goosebumps but wasnt that scary but anways I think that was the peak of the whole movie for me and I wish they kept that energy along the rest of the movie, after that it just becomes a waiting game for something interesting to happen and most of the time it just doesnt.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18177528/
- Platform: PRIME VIDEO
Rottentomatoes Rating
Matthew Lillard barely shows up witch sucks because the dude is great and the parts with him are way more interesting than most of the other stuff, he only appears in Vanessas visions for the most part as she deals with guilt over what her dad did to Charlotte. The marionette was the most creepy thing during the movie and probably the scariest part of it, they did some cool visuals with it, that were not exactly from the games but worked well for the movie format, when the marionette possesses Abby near the end that was a bit disturbing and probably the only time I actually felt creeped out during the whole movie. My biggest problem is that PG 13 rating is still holding this back so hard, I really though this time they were going for an R rated but they didnt and I say this without knowing anything about the games but based on the massive amount of comments on how it was one of the flaws from the first movie would have been better just to do a 180 degree change as they took the gamers side for the sequel, they try to push it with the kills but you can feel the limits and if they ever decide to go for a third movie they really need to just take the risk and go R rated because the story they are setting up needs that freedom, you can not have William Afton running around as a serial killer murdering kids and keep everything so tame and safe for teenagers. Josh Hutcherson does his best here but the poor guy has nothing to do for like half the movie, they gave him this whole sequence where he is trying to disconnect the animatronics at the original Freddy Fazbears location while dodging attacks from the withered ones and it drags a fkn ton. Elizabeth Lail gets way more to do in this one as Vanessa and she handles the emotional stuff pretty good, her character is dealing with guilt over Charlotte and then finds out she has a secret brother who is a security guard named Michael witch comes out of nowhere, she is in that heavy headspace for most of part of the movie and she pulls it off even when the writing does not give her much to work with.
The whole movie feels like they had no idea what story to tell so they just threw in a bunch of subplots and hoped it would add up to something, also consider I might be mistake if the games are like this, I bet they are not but still this is my perspective as just a viewer of the movies. Abby wanting to see her animatronic friends again, you got the romance thing between Mike and Vanessa that goes nowhere, you got McKenna Grace showing up as Lisa a paranormal investigator who accidentally disrupts Charlottes music box witch sets the marionette free to possess her and later break out into the real world witch was actually an important plot point but felt rushed, you got this science fair thing at Abbys school where Chica shows up and murders the teacher witch was brutal but came out of nowhere, none of it connects into one smooth plot that makes you care or try to figure out things by yourself instead of waiting for the movie to man explain things for you. The first movie had problems but at least it had a clear story you could follow, this one is just people doing random things to fill time until the movie ends, there is no character growth or progression, I hope they didnt decide to go this route thinking since this is a sequel the audience already knows whats up, like there wasnt anything that makes you invested in what is happening on screen witch is a huge step backwards from the first one. Even though it has been mention how this second movies does make a lot of reference to the games for me it just felt like watching a movie on my second monitor, like they made this exclusively for people who have spent hours studying FNAF lore and forgot that most of the audience has not done that. They marketed this movie to the whole world but only made it for a small group of people witch is a weird choice, you can not have your cake and eat it too, either make a movie for everyone or make it for the fans but do not pretend it is for both when it clearly is not.
The animatronic designs are still really good and that is probably the movies biggest strength, they nailed the look of these characters and the fact that they can be cute and terrifying at the same time depending on the context, the marionette especially looks great and the way it moves is unsetteling every time its on screen. The toy animatronics and the withered versions all look solid and you can tell they spent money on making these things look real instead of just using cheap CGI, and it turn out really good because practical effects always look better for this kind of stuff and it adds to the creepy factor when you know these are actual physical things on set with the actors. The sound design and music are doing a lot of heavy lifting here too, most of the scares come from loud noises and quick flashes but the music behind it makes those moments hit harder than they would as the story telling is messy, the whole audio experience is probabaly carrying the scare factor because visually the movie is not doing enough to freak you out on its own. There is also this whole Faz Fest thing happening in the background where the town created their first festival based on twisted local legends about what went down at Freddy Fazbears, people are walking around thinking it is all just spooky stories when the truth is way darker, the logic of this universe just does not add up most of the time but I guess it makes sense that regular people would turn trauma into entertainment witch is kind of messed up but people love drama.
Overall if you are a fan you will probably have a good time with all the reference and watching the animatronics come to life trying to connect with the game, but if you are not into the lore this will feel random with all the subplots taking different directions and never meet at a middle point, witch is not a good sign for a movie that is only around 100 minutes long, a very short one. The writing is the biggest problem here and the movie ends on a cliffhanger with Vanessa getting possessed by the marionette after Mike tells her to stay away from him and Abby because she lied about having a brother, then the post credits scene shows three people finding William Aftons decayed Springlock Bonnie suit from the first movie and taking it for a haunted house plus a voicemail from Henry Emily warning Mike that Charlotte is still out for blood before she kills him. I would give it another 7 out of 10 just like the first one, I dont think it was terrible and when you consider its strength and flaws it just trade a lot with the first movie, better than the first one in some technical ways like the animatronic work and the marionette scenes but way worse in terms of story and character development, it feels like a setup movie for what comes next witch I will still be watching and just add it to my buckelist for when I dont have much to watch, took me almost 3 years to watch the first one and went back to back with its sequel. If they can just figure out how to write an actual story instead of just throwing references to the games for 100 minutes then the third movie could be really good as this was an improvement in certain areas but if they keep going down this path of only caring about the game fans then this thing is going to lose everyone, in any case Im not sure how many movies they can make about the games but feels like a trilogy would already be a bit extended considering the success of the first two movies.
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