The US film rating agency finds nudity and swearing very bad, but tends to turn a blind eye to horror and violence. This makes the MPAA pretty much the exact opposite of the FSK, which always leads to absurd results – at least from a German perspective: The four-time Oscar-winning drama “The King's Speech” (FSK: ages 0 and up) is only released for adults in the USA because of a few stuttered swear words. In the case of the “Five Nights At Freddy's” video game adaptations, too, the different evaluation criteria lead to a paradoxical result: the PG-13 productions, with their decidedly anemic production, are explicitly designed for young horror fans between the ages of 10 and 14…
… and are also incredibly successful: Although it was released in cinemas and via streaming subscription on the same day in the USA, “Five Nights At Freddy's” grossed more than $80 million in the first weekend alone. The best start for a horror film in all of 2023 – and an all-round gigantic success, especially given the slim $20 million budget. In Germany, however, the sequel “Five Nights At Freddy's 2”, again directed by director Emma Tammi, is now only released for ages 16 and over. This means that the only people who would possibly be genuinely frightened despite the harmless nature of the pizza chain mascot horror are unfortunately not allowed to go to the cinema at all.
Mike (Josh Hutcherson), his younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio) and the police officer Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) are actually still recovering from the horrors of the first part…
A year after the events of the first part, the deadly events at the disused restaurant Freddy Fazbear's Pizza have become a local legend. To mark the one-year anniversary, there will even be a big Fazfest – with booths and costumes. But is the animatronic horror really over? After all, it's not just eleven-year-old Abby (Piper Rubio) who desperately wants to revive her dormant “friends” Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy. At the same time, the spectral phenomena YouTuber Lisa (Mckenna Grace) and her crew enter the very first Fazbear's branch – and thereby conjure up a particularly vengeful puppet…
There's a big surprise at the very end (or not)
At the very beginning, even in front of the obligatory logos of the producing film studios, William Afton (Matthew Lillard) appears again, whose maltreated body in the finale of the predecessor was dragged by the animatronics into a back room of the pizzeria for further processing (unfortunately nothing can be shown anyway because of the PG-13 rating, but for that to happen characters basically have to be moved out of sight of the audience first). With appropriate madness, the already defeated psycho killer and child murderer asks you to stay put until the very end, because then there would be another big surprise.
But if he's referring to the mid- and post-credit scenes, that would really be a gross exaggeration. Because the two sequences submitted later promise, above all, that “Five Nights At Freddy's 3” will be just like “Five Nights At Freddy's 2” – and after 105 extremely boring minutes, that sounds more like a lump of coal in your stocking. The budget for the sequel was more than doubled after the huge success of its predecessor – and you can definitely see that in the animatronic dolls, which are not only more numerous but also more versatile. After all, the Muppets masterminds are also behind it: the effects artists from Jim Henson's Creature Shop.
The animatronic figures are the biggest strength of the film – but they don't appear nearly as often in the second part as you would like.
But the script this time again comes from Scott Cawthon – and his central involvement is becoming more and more of a problem: The game developer has undoubtedly achieved a mega success by merely hinting at a comprehensive mythology in the “Five Nights” games with Easter eggs sprinkled in, which was then put together by the players themselves from the individual fragments in comprehensive forum threads and game wikis. But in his second career he now fails catastrophically to tell an at least somewhat coherent film story – the jumps between scenes seem confusing, tension never arises, and the humor is at best unintentionally funny.
In addition, the human characters generally speak to each other in a way that makes them seem even more robot-like than the animatronic dolls: When the night guard Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and the police officer Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) discuss their traumas, the dialogue is pure cringe – and therefore even more difficult to bear than the spouted-off bits of exposition that the horror cult star Skeet Ulrich is allowed to contribute in a mini supporting role before his Guest gives an important quest item without any motivation (one of the few, but particularly loud laughs in the cinema).
Jump scares to shrug off
There were no real shocks in the first part. Instead, there were jump scares of the mildest variety, where the main concern seemed to be just not to scare anyone unnecessarily. In the sequel, the level of tension levels off even further: On the one hand, this is due to the even more incoherent narrative – but at the same time also because this time more game mechanics from the games are adopted directly into the film plot. This is a great thing in itself, especially for fans, and can work well, as we recently saw with “The Super Mario Bros. Film” and “A Minecraft Film”.
But the way Mike is banished back to the pizzeria surveillance desk seems, above all, awkwardly forced. If he simply holds up an animatronic facial piece every time one of the pizzeria mascots gets too close to him, this corresponds to the central defense strategy in the second video game (just not usable in Foxy and the Marionette), but it doesn't promote much suspense on the big screen. And when the beautifully designed Freddy animatronic stomps off towards the well-attended city festival, then… of course nothing happens at all, otherwise someone might have trouble sleeping after going to the cinema.
Conclusion: The first “Five Nights At Freddy's” film was very disappointing, but the second part – despite the even greater and more diverse animatronic models – is finally just snarky, confused and unintentionally funny.
PS: For spoiler reasons, I won't reveal why having Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich in the same film is such a big deal for horror fans of my generation – and why I'm so disappointed that the two never actually share the screen. But at least there is hope that young moviegoers will take “Five Nights At Freddys” as a horror gateway drug – and then, if possible, in a few years, also to masterpieces like this this one here to advance.