Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet watched Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, so be warned!
To get this viewpoint out of the way right up top: I would love if a live-action Five Nights at Freddy’s could exist that focused entirely on the boffo animatronic characters crafted by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, without having to spend much time with any of the human characters. We’ve not yet reached that point, however, and despite my tempered hopes, Blumhouse and Universal’s Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 somehow bombed even harder with critics than the first one — here’s our review — thanks in large part to its sloppy storytelling.
Of course, this is a franchise bolstered by obsessive fans, and I can’t help but love the fact that so many of them showed up in droves that FNAF 2 managed to surpass the first film’s opening weekend. So it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that the third film in this planned trilogy will get formally announced soon. However, two of the sequel’s most glaring (to me) issues are stopping me from feeling overwhelmingly optimistic about FNAF 3 being a quality closer, and these are the kinds of things game creator and film screenwriter Scott Cawthon should definitely avoid.
Skeet Ulrich’s Appearance Is Wildly Confusing At Best, Completely Mishandled At Worst
When the rumors surfaced that Skeet Ulrich joined the Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 cast, horror fans like me had Scream-flavored visions of the two actors sharing the screen in one way or another, and fans immediately predicted that the Jericho vet would be taking on the role of Freddy Fazbear’s co-creator, Henry Emily. The actor himself didn’t feed too much into the fan comments when he finally addressed his casting, but the idea that he’d possibly still be involved with the third film only strengthened the belief that he was playing Henry.
Like so many details from this movie, however, Ulrich’s long scene with Josh Hutcherson’s Mike barely amounts to more than one big shrug for audience members who aren’t already intimately aware of the character’s importance from the games. In fact, that sequence almost comes across as if it’s purposefully being opaque about things, given that Henry only talks to Mike about his murdered daughter without dropping the major connective tissue between him and Vanessa’s dear old dead dad.
Sure, there are dots that can be connected. His dead daughter’s name being Charlotte is certainly the big one, but there’s also the fact that he gave Mike a music box to use on the ghostly Charlotte. Not a lot of people out here designing music boxes, so that tapped into the character’s crafty nature. Except wait… Again, if you aren’t familiar with the herky-jerk canon of the video games and tie-in books and graphic novels, these details probably had little impact, and one wonders why Cawthon didn’t just make it immediately clear who Henry is.
Instead, that exposition comes out in the most awkward way possible: via voice message to Mike that plays over the end credits. Sure, that’s a direct nod to Henry’s voice memos in the game, but it made a hell of a lot more sense in that medium than it does in live-action. So for anyone who wasn’t able to, or chose not to, stick around to watch the credits, Skeet Ulrich’s appearance must have felt like the weirdest left-field casting.
Oh yeah, and zero scenes between Ulrich and Matthew Lillard. I don’t even know what to do with that.
The Fact That Multiple Pizzeria Locations Exist (And Without Mike Being Aware) Is Ridiculous
In adapting the janky timeline he’d set up with the video games, Scott Cawthon had the chance to right any and all wrongs by establishing a more believable and easier-to-understand history for Freddy Fazbear’s restaurants. Instead, FIve Nights at Freddy’s 2 goes down the exact same path and gives the live-action universe the exact same inconsistencies.
I realize that in 1982, there was no Internet or social media to hold people and businesses instantly accountable, but how likely is it that a family-friendly upstart like this would continue to exist after one of the founders’ daughters was murdered while attempting to reverse another child’s abduction? Did they just never question William Afton about it, because I don’t think Lillard’s character could deal with high-pressure questioning for very long without lapsing into cartoonish villainy.
Even if I allow myself to be comfortable with the concept of more than one Freddy Fazbear pizzeria being legally allowed to open following child-related crimes going down, I would still take issue with the way these other entertainment centers are introduced within the narrative. Which is to say, Mike’s mind is blown to learn that there was another Freddy’s location, even though this is something he 100% would have learned even if he’d only accidentally stumbled into five seconds of research. There’s nothing accidental about it, though, since Mike’s family is entirely enmeshed in Afton’s crimes.
Let’s see. One of Mike’s siblings was murdered by William Afton, and his other sibling has spent the past three years obsessing over the robotics the dude helped popularize. Then there was their duplicitous and greed-driven Aunt Jane, who was straight-up murdered by an animatronic. But you’re telling me despite all that, along with whatever police interviews and court cases that followed, Mike still managed to remain entirely clueless about there being an original Freddy’s? Maybe he deserves to get his noggin gnawed on a little by some steel teeth.
Considering both of the above issues would have been easy to fix for a big-screen adaptation, I can’t help but feel all the more wary about Blumhouse and Universal ordering up and dumping even more money into a third entry joining the legion of upcoming horror movies. And I didn’t even attempt to talk about the giant whiff of Freddy Carter’s Michael Afton, who arrived out of nowhere as Vanessa’s brother and William’s son. Maybe, just maybe, in a movie with less than 10 characters whose names matter: DON’T USE THE NAME MICHAEL IF THERE’S ALREADY A MIKE INVOLED. But I digress.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is currently in theaters, and will be available to rent and purchise on VOD and digital before the end of the year.