I love Wayne Knight.

Five Nights At Freddy’s is one of those films that’s guaranteed to get high audience ratings but a low critic score for the obvious reasons, not least of which because the laughter of children is kind of like pouring salt on a slug to film critics. And with an 85% audience score and a 15% critic response, FNAF 2 answers a very important question; what the hell has Wayne Knight been doing all this time? I feel like I haven’t seen him in years.

Directed by Emma Tammi (Five Guys at Fredman’s 1) and written by creator Scott Cawthon, Five Frights At Fredward’s 2 once again stars Josh Hutcherson as Mike Schmidt, who following the events of the first movie is just trying to move on with his life and return to normalcy. The problem is you can’t really go back to normal after encountering the souls of dead children stuffed into pizzeria mascot suits. Elizabeth Lail returns as Vanessa, who has also been trying to get over her trauma after the events of the first movie and deal with her dad (Matthew Lillard) being a serial killer. And then of course there is Piper Rubio, the ever-adorable actress playing Abby Schmidt, who is now lonely after her ghost friends have inexplicably disappeared.

If you aren’t familiar with the Five Guys franchise and how the storytelling works, it kinda goes like this; the game series is the main continuity and is as vague as possible on exactly what is going on and who is doing what. Everything down to who you are playing as in the games is up to interpretation. The books and movies are canon to the games in the sense that they follow the major plot beats but don’t actually exist in the same continuity. But there are things that happen in the books that explain concepts in the games and the movies are no exception.

The first movie aped on the first game, and it makes sense that the second movie pulls from the second game and the inevitable third movie will lean toward FNAF 3. Abby gets lured to another Fazbear’s Pizza Palace where she encounters the toy animatronics now with voice acting. There’s Freddy (Kellen Goff), Toy Chica (Megan Fox), and Toy Bonnie (Matthew “MatPat” Patrick). The story also dives deeper into the Emily family with Charlotte (Audrey Lynn Marie), an early murder victim and the daughter of Henry (Skeet Ulrich) who used to work with William Afton. If you know the games you’ll recognize these names.

Overall the plot of Five Night’s At Freddy’s 2 is…dumb. One big diversion from the games is that Charlotte was killed by an adult and is now on a Children of the Corn style revenge streak against all adults. Or all parents? I don’t know you would know if someone is a parent just by looking at them. Anyway, that plot point is dumb. Much like a corn on the cob, it serves merely as a vehicle to deliver the yummy Mexican street corn seasonings and butter to your movie mouth, a term that sounds vaguely dirty now that I think about it.

The animatronics in FNAF 2 are a spectacle to look at, as is the set dressing and the other stuff. If you know nothing about the series then there are going to be a lot of scenes in the film that seem confusingly inserted and it’s because they exist as an “if you know you know” hinting toward future movies. For example in one scene child Vanessa stumbles on an animatronic that looks like a girl in a red tutu. She never appears in the rest of the movie and all that really happens is her eyes light up. If you’re a fan of the games then you understand not only who the animatronic is, what her presence in the films implies, and why it’d be important that her eyes light up green.

Is FNAF 2 better than FNAF 1? Yes. Should you watch it? If you’re a fan of the franchise, sure. Why not. Am I excited for FNAF 3? Not particularly. Will I watch it when it comes out? Sure. Why not.

Rating: B+