Five Nights At Freddy's 2 Improves On The First Movie In Only One Way

Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe it's because I'm older. Maybe it's because I've seen too many horror films in my life. It could even be because I'm old enough to remember the Showbiz Pizza/Chuck E. Cheese's animatronic bands when they were still a novelty. But for whatever reason, I don't find the killer animatronic animals in the "Five Nights at Freddy's" movies the least bit scary.

One can see why the original "Freddy's" game creator Scott Cawthon would want to make a horror franchise about killer pizzeria robots. Those of us who did see live performances by the Showbiz Pizza band, called the Rock-a-Fire Explosion, will recall that they could be a little unsettling. The robotics were impressive, almost to a fault, forcing the keyboard-playing ape and puppet-wielding cat into the uncanny valley. Some kids could vividly picture the Rock-a-Fire Explosion standing up, walking off the stage, and doing them grievous bodily harm. Cawthon was clearly just tapping into those nightmares when he invented "Five Nights at Freddy's."

But the animatronics in the movies don't possess that same uncanny valley effect. There's nothing eerie about them, nothing unsettling. They seem too artificial, too "movie." Like scary killer dolls or scary clowns, making scary animatronics is a delicate balance. There had to be an innocuous quality to the monsters, a sense of plausible deniability; these may be scary, but they were clearly meant to be cute. 

Because of the non-scary designs of the monsters, both of the movies inspired by "Freddy's" have been pretty limp. The bad writing could have been forgiven if the monsters gave me nightmares. 

I will say this for "Five Nights at Freddy's 2," however: The newest animatronic — a spindly, clown-faced puppet called the Marionette — is genuinely creepy. 

The plot of director Emma Tammi's new film surrounds the fate of a young girl named Charlotte (Audrey Lynne-Marie), who was murdered by the serial killer William Afton (Matthew Lillard) back in 1982. (Afton was the villain of the first "Freddy's" film.) After her death, Charlotte's ghost continued to haunt a Freddy's, where — natch — all the animatronic performers came to life. Charlotte, as seen in a flashback, was very fond of the large puppet-like animatronic, the Marionette. It seems that the Marionette was unique to only one Freddy's location in 1982, explaining why we didn't see it in the first movie, which was set at a shuttered Freddy's franchise location. 

The Marionette is a standby figure from Cawthon's "Freddy's" games. The above photo is from "Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted," a VR game from 2019. The Marionette is about eight feet tall, and sports Tim Burton-like black-and-white-striped limbs. Its face is fixed into a permanent grin, and it has large open eye sockets. It looks like a shadow wearing a mask. It is reminiscent of No-Face from "Spirited Away" or the Jigsaw puppet from the "Saw" movies. 

Unlike the other "Freddy's" animatronics, the Marionette is actually scary. There are a few skilled jump scares that Tammi inserts throughout the movie, all of them from the Marionette. It also possesses that unusual plausible deniability mentioned above. It's a scary, stick-like horror puppet, but one can almost see how someone would have designed that as a legit piece of entertainment for children. You put it next to Freddy Fazbear, and lo, it seems more innocuous ... and hence, more terrifying. 

The plot of "Five Nights at Freddy's 2" doesn't make any sense, and the Marionette's abilities seem to fluctuate. Its power makes for some scary horror movie moments, at the very least, even if the actual powers are never clearly defined. The Marionette can seemingly possess humans from time to time, and also control Freddy's animatronics by remote (either technologically or supernaturally, depending on the scene). More than anything, it's just a scary design. A good horror monster in an otherwise bad horror movie. 

And while the Freddy's animatronics may not be all that scary, the effects used to create them are first-rate. The characters were constructed as elaborate suits, provided by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, and then outfitted onto physically adept actors, who move like robots. It's more convincing than any CGI creations would be. The first "Freddy's" saw fuzzy, run-down versions of the characters. "Freddy's 2" introduces new, alternate versions of the characters who are shinier and more toy-like. The suits are so impressive, they practically upstage the human actors around them. 

There is also a third version of the Freddy's animatronics in "Freddy's 2" which approaches scary. It seems that there are older, defunct prototype robots who are being stripped for parts over time. At one point, the stripped prototypes also come to life, and their skinless faces, dangling half-limbs, and swinging, gnarled jaws are a little startling. "Freddy's 2" has a bad script, but on a visual level, the monsters are impressive to behold. 

Only the Marionette, however, is actually scary.

"Five Nights at Freddy's 2" is in theaters now.