Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 was the biggest opening ever for a post-Thanksgiving Theatrical Release, beating Warner Bros’ 2003 Tom Cruise epic The Last Samurai. Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) is a massive multimedia franchise that started off as one video game. In the first game, the player is a security guard that has to survive the night shift at the pizzeria. The four main animatronics featured are Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy which all try to attack the player. Many people enjoyed the game, so FNAF released more games and two movies; the second having been released on December 5, 2025 in cinemas.
Scott Cawthon, the creator of the franchise, helped write the films while Golden Scythe Horror nominee Emma Tammi directed them. These movies did great at the box office. Many fans were excited to see their childhood come to life through these films. The movies are horror films that feature lots of jumpscares; however, they aren’t as scary as the games. Some fans were upset that the movies were watered down and wished they had more frightening elements.
The second game features Toy Freddy, Toy Chica, Toy Bonnie, Mangle, Marionette, Balloon Boy, and the withered animatronics. Though the name may be confusing, FNAF 2 takes place before FNAF 1. However, the movie FNAF 2 takes place after FNAF 1, and according to some, has little correlation to the game. In order to simplify the narrative, Mike Schmidt, the protagonist, and Michael Afton, the antagonist, are two separate characters. Whereas in the games, they are the same people, and Mike Schmidt is just an alias. In the games, Michael Afton works as a security guard in order to investigate his father’s crimes; yet, in the movie, Michael wants to continue his father’s legacy, which is the complete opposite of his original goal.
The actors did a great job performing in the film. Two famous actors featured in both the movies were Josh Hutcherson, as Mike Schmidt, and Elizabeth Lail, as Vanessa Shelly, two major characters in the series. The taxi driver was played by Cory DeVante Williams, also widely known as YouTuber CoryxKenshin. Seeing his familiar face caused lots of excitement in theatres. Speaking of YouTube, former YouTuber MatPat, also known as Matthew Patrick, was the voice actor for Toy Bonnie, alongside Megan Fox as Toy Chica, and Kellen Goff as both Toy Freddy and Foxy.
The film featured stunning computer-generated imagery (CGI), while the animatronics seemed lifelike. However, according to Earline Duplan, a freshmen at Heritage High School that has been a huge fan of FNAF since childhood, the marionette, when possessing others, looked “off,” and she was not a fan of how the marionette was altered for the movie. In the game, Charlotte, the marionette, is the protector of the other souls and keeps them calm. Nonetheless, in the movie, she is evil. Charlotte gets murdered by William Afton, a serial child-killer who’s the owner of the pizzeria and father of Vanessa and Michael, because she saved one of his victims. Since none of the other adults would help, her ghost feels rage and aims to kill them all by controlling the other animatronics. Contrastingly, in the game, she was getting bullied and was locked outside the building, and that’s when she got murdered by William.
Though the movie changed name details that the game had developed, it was still enjoyable. The second movie ended in a cliffhanger, leaving fans in suspense, so fans are excited for the franchise to return to theatres as FNAF 3 in a year or so.
