Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, out now in theaters, doesn’t sound like a good movie. And sure, the first film wasn’t a cinematic masterpiece, but according to critics, the sequel is even worse. It’s already one of 2025’s worst-rated movies, beating out some real stinkers.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is the follow-up to 2023’s Five Nights at Freddy’s and, like that movie, is a live-action adaptation of the popular horror game franchise that features a lot of evil animatronic figures and tons of confusing and bizarre lore. The original film was a big hit at the box office, but took a beating from critics and ended up with an abysmal 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. I bet Blumhouse and Universal would love for the newly released sequel to have that score. Instead, critics seem to hate this new entry even more, with Freddy’s 2 sitting at a truly awful 12% on the review aggregate site. Ouch.
Here’s what various critics think about this latest horror sequel:
“Clunky, overstuffed, and strangely lifeless, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 trades genuine scares for incoherent lore. Even the animatronics can’t save a sequel that feels more like brand maintenance than an actual movie.” – Dionar Hidalgo, Algo Más Que Cine
“[Its] sole imperative appears to be boring its audience to death.” – Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
“Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 plays best for die-hard fans; for everyone else, it’s a stitched-together sequel with few scares and even fewer surprises.” – Allison Rose, FlickDirect
“Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is one of Blumhouse’s worst sequels, nothing more than a cynical cash grab that treats its audience and fanbase like mindless children.” -Tyler Taing, Discussing Film
And it goes on and on and on. The consensus is that the movie is primarily designed to appeal to younger teens who are already obsessed with the franchise and will pick up on all the lore, Easter eggs, and secrets buried in the PG-13 horror flick. So it will likely make a lot of money, like the last one. But for everyone else, including people who like good movies, Freddy’s 2 sounds like a bad time and one to avoid.
Compared to some other stinkers released this year, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is up there. It has a worse Rotten Tomatoes score than the awful Star Trek movie we got this year, which most people thankfully don’t know about. It also has a worse RT rating than the utterly awful Jack Black led Minecraft film, which is wild. It even has a worse score than Disney’s terrible Snow White remake, which, yes, came out this year. Remember that movie? Probably not.
Oh, and if you are wondering, no, according to Rotten Tomatoes, Freddy’s 2 is better than the Borderlands movie. But just barely, as that disaster of a flick from Eli Roth has a 10% rating. Better than Borderlands isn’t much, but it is something to brag about, I guess?
