Why Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is a Worthy Sequel

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 certainly got off to a wonderful start at the box office during its debut week despite critics absolutely panning it across the board but as someone who refuses to be labelled a critic (I’m just a Stoke lad with a big gob) I came out pleasantly surprised at how good it was and how true it was to the original games.

Expectations were stacked against the film before it had released as the first film was an absolute hit with fans but the one thing that fans did complain about was its dissociation to the lore of the original games.

Up steps the second movie which leans on heavy fan-favourite characters (and not so fan-favourite) along with multiple game references and whilst a slight deviation on Charlotte’s story as painted within the games the story of the Marionette was a chilling and quite nice angle to take during the second film.

I can’t say I’ve ever played the games, I’m not a gamer in the slightest but when people around you in the cinema are right there on opening night laughing and even applauding at certain references then you know you’ve done a good job at sparking those fan-service moments.

The first movie certainly seemed to draw in a larger audience whereas Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is certainly made with specific fans in mind, it’s world-building but at the same time could alienate the much larger audience it attracted with the first instalment.

Cool sets, incredible animatronics and more FNAF is cheesy, but it’s cheesy good fun.

Using real animatronics in the film as opposed to CGI certainly makes them seem more intimidating but they never fail to make me laugh because these things move at 1 miles an hour so any sort of character in the film could easily just out-run them and with them being so clunky and heavy you could easily just shimmy around them and get away so they do seem quite redundant at being scary which for a horror film sort of defeats the object.

The film also leans into the eerie vibe of the game series: dated tech, dim hallways, flickering lights, maps, walkie-talkies, and the signature contrast between cheerful kid-friendly décor and sinister backstage areas. This helps FNAF 2 feel more authentically “game-like” than its predecessor.

There’s a few disjointed backstories here but it’s clearly tee’ing up a third movie which has already been confirmed if this one was successful at the box office, and it was.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 has already racked up a very impressive $110 million since last Friday against its $20 million budget.

So whilst critics around the world are labelling it as the worst movie of 2025, it doesn’t seem to be slowing down at the box office any time soon which kind of proves two things. One, you can’t stop this franchise freight train rolling and two, critics don’t half talk some s**t.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is a darker, more ambitious, and more lore-driven sequel that finally commits to being a true adaptation of the games’ mythology. It delivers rich backstory, immersive atmosphere, and impressive practical effects — all elements fans wanted more of the first time around.

But that ambition also creates clutter: uneven pacing, muddled storytelling, and scares that don’t always hit as hard as they could.

The film is a treat for devoted fans of the series, a worthy sequel, but a less effective standalone horror movie and as someone who never played the games I can see why people would feel a certain distance to this particular film if they have never played the game.