Fans Say Critics Got Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Completely Wrong
FNAF fans are raving while critics are cold on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, with user scores soaring far above the press. The split is igniting a fresh fans-versus-critics showdown over the franchise’s big-screen return.
Five Nights at Freddy's 2 is getting the kind of split reaction that makes you double-take the score. Critics are ice-cold on it; fans are basically hugging it. And the gap got even wider since yesterday.
The numbers right now
- Rotten Tomatoes critics: 12% Tomatometer from 68 reviews (as of Friday, December 5)
- Rotten Tomatoes audience: 88% 'Popcornmeter' from 500+ verified ratings
- Metacritic critics: 31 average from 20 reviews
- Metacritic users: 6.7/10 from 68 ratings
- IMDb users: 5.9/10 overall, with 43 of 133 user reviews giving a perfect 10
That is a canyon of a gap. Not exactly shocking for a franchise sequel, but the spread here is unusually big even by horror-fan standards.
So why are fans happy while critics are not?
Short version: it is built for the faithful. Director Emma Tammi leans into what this audience wants, and with series creator Scott Cawthon writing, the movie is loaded with references and Easter eggs straight from the games. If that sentence made you smile, you are probably the target demo. If you are just hunting for a tight, scary standalone horror flick, critics say this is not it.
"Fans of the games will be overjoyed by how beautifully these animatronics are brought to life and all the visual and musical references to a series they have loved for years. Critics like me? We just want a good horror movie. And we are not getting that here."
- Jonathan Sim, ComingSoon
That basically nails the disconnect: fandom service vs. film fundamentals. The movie plays like a reward for people fluent in FNAF lore. If you are not, the appeal drops fast.
Release and box office outlook
Despite the critical drubbing, projections still have Five Nights at Freddy's 2 pulling a healthy $35–$40 million at the domestic box office. The sequel opens nationwide on December 5. Fans are clearly showing up, which, honestly, tells you everything you need to know about where this franchise lives — on the fan side of the ledger.