Movie Review: FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: December 5th, 2025 / 01:31 AM

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S 2 | ©2025 Universal

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Matthew Lillard, Audrey Lynn Marie, Skeet Ulrich, Mckenna Grace, David Andrew Calvillo, Teo Briones, Wayne Knight, Freddy Carter
Writer: Scott Cawthon, based on the video game FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S by Scott Cawthon
Director: Emma Tammi
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Release Date: December 5, 2025

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2 is a follow-up to 2023’s FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S, based on the popular videogame created by Scott Cawthon. Both films are directed by Emma Tammi. Cawthon was one of the writers on the first movie; here he’s the sole scripter.

The opening good news is that FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2 is an improvement on the original. It has creepier imagery, more solid scares, and a somewhat easier to follow plot, even if some of the internal mythology is still on the “wait, what?” side.

A prologue set in 1982 introduces us intentionally to a slightly different version of the family-friendly Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Restaurant, which has more attractions than the one we remember from the first film. The giant animatronic characters of Freddy Fazbear, Chica Chicken, Bonnie Bunny and Foxy Fox are back. Added to their company is the Mannequin, an ominous feminine figure who rises from the center of the floor to “conduct” the others.

Young Charlotte (Audrey Lynn Marie) saves a little boy from evil roboticist/warlock William Afton (Matthew Lillard) at the cost of her own life.

Twenty years later, former Freddy’s security guard Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is still protective of his now-eleven-year-old sister Abby (Piper Rubio), who almost got killed in the first movie. Abby misses her animatronic friends from Freddy’s. Mike keeps lying and saying he’s going to fix them.

Here is where we get to the first sizable hiccup. Viewers of the original FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S may feel that Abby didn’t get to spend long enough with the souls of the children who turned out to be inhabiting the animatronic creatures to miss them this much. Moreover, they spent a fair amount of time trying to murder her and Mike, and when they finally got over that, it seemed like they were exorcised from the animatronics. So, why does Abby pine over them and/or suppose they’re still at the long-closed-down establishment?

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2 seems to hope that audiences for its predecessor won’t wonder about this overmuch, and that newcomers just hop on board with what’s happening now.

Story-wise, ten months have passed since the main events (sans flashbacks) of the previous movie. Mike and Abby are both more or less adjusting, although Abby would like her school friends to believe what she tells them about her experiences.

Former police officer Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), the late Afton’s daughter, is having a tougher time of it. She’s having nightmares about her father and his creations. Vanessa and Mike want to support each other emotionally, and there may be romance brewing between them, but she remains easily unnerved.

The filmmakers give us a capsulized classic segment with three young would-be documentarians (Mckenna Grace, David Andrew Calvillo, Teo Briones) wandering around where they shouldn’t.

In addition to setting up how things are going to go in the main narrative, we appreciate this mini-film’s quick pacing, inventive bloodshed and effective jumps packed into a tidy timeframe.

These virtues continue throughout FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2. The possibilities are expanded exponentially, allowing for more types of menace. The links between machinery and the supernatural remain blurry, but the rules are easier to discern.

The returning cast are all good, with Rubio alternately plucky, intrepid and terrified. Marie covers a wide range of behavior well, and Wayne Knight scores up as an unpleasant schoolteacher.

Even without its post-credits scene, FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2 couldn’t be clearer about its intentions to proceed onto FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 3. There are ominous warnings and wholly untied plot threads at the conclusion.

But FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2 stands up well enough on its own, providing fun holiday horror with creepy/funny sight gags and a method to its madness.

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