‘Five Nights At Freddy’s 2’ Review — Chuck E. Cheesy
The words “cash grab” are coming to mind; yes, cash grabbed like quarters tumbling into video games in an arcade that also has Skee-Ball and stale pizza. In such places, the abyss for spare change, tokens, and useless little tickets is deeper than Hollywood’s debts.
I am evoking the images of many childhoods spent in dim dens of entertainment and hyperactivity galore, where kids ate their weight in average-to-mediocre pepperoni and cheese. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 does a decent job of capturing the aesthetic of those places and the period they came from, but that is about it as far as what this movie does competently.
The sequel picks up, however casually, after the events of the last one. Josh Hungergames (I know I didn’t coin that) is refurbishing his house and trying to raise his little sister (Piper Rubio) in peace. (Seriously, that’s so convoluted: Just make him her dad, enough with stretching credulity.)
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However, she is a dumb kid, so she misses her ghostly friends who possess the animatronics. When she gets in touch with them, or so she thinks, through a Freddy’s brand Speak & Spell, the games really begin. Still, there’s more; this is only a subplot woven into the main story.
Flashing back to the early 80s, a depressed emo outcast named Charlotte (Audrey Lynn Marie) sits in front of the stage at the original Freddy’s location (which everyone just plum forgot about, even though it’s in the area). Instead of sitting with the other kids, she waits for the creepy Marionette to pop out. This nightmare creation is the only thing that brings her comfort because, you know, she’s weird.
Then, little Char is murdered by the Bunnyman founder of the restaurant played by Matthew Lillard in the stupidest sequence of events I witnessed this year. Her vengeful spirit becomes trapped in the weird kabuki puppet, and she vows revenge. Yet, rather than make Lillard feel her wrath, she does the contrived thing and targets parents – all of them – for being selfish.
(I know, makes total sense, right…???)
FNAF2 is a mess of a film that is only making money based on the following behind its IP. There is a lack of redeeming quality to the picture outside the suits made by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. They do enviable work and always have. Remember their Ninja Turtles? You know you do (you and Pepperidge Farms).
There are a few effective jump scares, but they’re simple callbacks to the games that mask the weak-sauce flavor of an eye-rolling pretzel of a story, hobbled further by bad acting and dumb decisions. Despite the events of the last movie, everybody ignores the Chinese parade of red flags and waltzes right into danger.
I sympathize to a point; I forgot most of the last film, too, and I know that the plot needs to happen, no matter how all over the place that thankless turkey is. My ticket was only seven bucks, thank God, but I could have spent that legal tender more wisely. I was close to walking out of the theater and never coming back. Not out of disgust, mind you, but rather sheer boredom and insult of my senses.
In sum, Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 is not good horror. It’s not even good gateway horror, which in my humble opinion, was way better back when the restaurants that FNAF lampoons reigned supreme like the pizza they half-cooked. You are better off kicking back with your kids and showing them 90s Goosebumps episodes. That’s the fun I could have been having.
NEXT: ‘Five Nights At Freddy’s’ Review – Intricate Animatronics Dominate Diluted Horror
Five Nights at Freddy's
PROS
- The top-notch work of Jim Henson's Creature Shop
- Wayne Knight is yet again the best thing about a bad movie
- Megan Fox as the voice of the animatronic Chica
CONS
- Josh Hutcherson sleepwalking his way through his part
- Dumb characters in a lazy, unoriginal story
- Blumhouse is liable to learn the wrong lesson from FNAF's success
