Carnivalesque kitsch meets ’90s slasher fare — sort of — in “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” the marginally bigger and badder follow-up to the first Freddy movie from 2023. The compliment is relative given the sluggishness of the first installment, which kicked off the video game adaptation’s puzzle-box narrative about a haunted Chuck E. Cheese-esque arcade and the serial child murderer who lives there. With its jacked-up production budget, “Freddy’s 2,” at the very least, delivers more intricate set pieces that allow for a spatter of solid kill scenes — the rest is as tame and creaky as its signature animatronic teddies.
One year after Mike (Josh Hutcherson), his little sister, Abby (Piper Rubio), and the killer’s wounded adult daughter, Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) escape Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a new baddie — and some old traumas — lure the trio back to the cursed establishment. A ghoulish marionette doll infused with the angry spirit of one the killer’s victims reanimates the busted animatronics — hulking metal renderings of a bear, rabbit, chicken and fox — and makes easy work of a reality TV crew before setting her sights on Abby and company.
The director Emma Tammi brings back the first installment’s one saving grace, a wonderfully wild-eyed Matthew Lillard, to beef up Vanessa’s daddy issues. Another “Scream” veteran, Skeet Ulrich, also appears as Abby’s delightfully hateable robotics teacher, whose bullying sends the moody girl back into the arms of her evil animal friends.
Neither Ulrich nor Lillard get enough screen time to eclipse the film’s bland beats and wooden dialogue. The story — overworked and drained of tension — is a watered-down cocktail of damaged childhoods and parental neglect, and whatever attempts at humor are mustered (save for the scenes involving the impish Ulrich) land awkwardly. Maybe fans of the sprawling video game franchise, with its seemingly infinite number of Easter eggs, would consider them inside jokes.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Rated PG-13 for bloodshed and jump-scares. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters.
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