0 ★ (0 out of 4)
You’ve all heard the old adage about a movie being so bad it’s good. Well, “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” now littering your local multiplex, disproves that hackneyed notion by being so bad it’s godawful. What does it take to make the leap from bad to worse? Step right up for the sequel that does everything wrong.
Not that the first “Freddy’s” in 2023 was anything to text home about. No one cared about its pitiful 33 percent score on rotten tomatoes. That’s because the Popcorn score for audiences was a potent 86 percent and the worldwide box office crested near a wowza $300 million. In our benighted film nation, money remains the one indisputable measure of success.
By any measure of quality, ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’ sinks quickly to the soggy bottom of rank ineptitude in writing, directing and acting. I smell a hit!
By any measure of quality, “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” sinks quickly to the soggy bottom of rank ineptitude in writing, directing and acting. Most of the characters, even the dead ones, return to do the same horror cosplay they did the last time.
There’s security guard Mike (Josh Hutcherson, good-sporting it), his kid sister, Abby (Piper Rubio), and crazy-eyed cop Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) in whom Mike insanely sees date potential even though she is the daughter of Willem Afton, the child serial killer played so well by bug-eyed “Scream” graduate Matthew Lilliard in the first film that they kindly resurrected him for the sequel. Did I say he died in the first film? He did.
Keep an eye on Abby since she thinks the spirit of her friends, the ones killed by Afton, is still present in the Chuck E. Cheese emporium that houses her animatronic pals Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy. These spirits aren’t so bad, but look out for the little girl killed back in 1982. She hates her parents and yours for letting it happen. And who better than a lumbering animatronic hunk of metal to exact bloody revenge on mommy and daddy? Now would be a good time to point out that “Freddy’s 2” is rated PG-13, so gore fiends will be sorely frustrated.
Also, all of these so-called monsters—plushy and metal—look ridiculous, though I will give a hall pass to The Marionette, whose rosy cheeks and elongated arms add a new definition for creepy. These will be the first and last meager words of praise I will apply to “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” surely the worst scarefest since fiasco director extraordinaire Ed Wood taught us how bad bad could be in 1959’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” At least Ed Wood’s amateur bungling came from a place of love; this one feels like something upchucked after eating six nights straight at Freddy’s. You’ve been warned.