Matthew Lillard has a long relationship with horror.
Scream will always be the title most associated with the actor, but Lillard’s contribution to the darkest of genres goes much deeper than one movie. The star indeed made his debut in a horror film, the low-budget 1991 sequel Ghoulies III, before making his permanent mark as Stu in the first installment of the long-running meta-slasher Scream series. Lillard later encountered supernatural horror in the remake Thirteen Ghosts, following that up with roles in the Larry Cohen-written thriller Messages Deleted, the satirical Bloodsucking Bastards, and the 2022 Scream reboot.
2023’s Five Nights at Freddy’s brought horror veteran Lillard back into the realm of the supernatural, an experience he repeated in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, which is set to find a new streaming home on Netflix August 3.
Based on a popular video game series, the first FNAF movie grossed $297 million when it released, easily making back its reported $20 million budget. The 2025 sequel got a bump in budget up to a reported $36-$51 million, and again made out like a bandit at the box office, grossing $239 million to seemingly guarantee a Five Nights at Freddy’s 3.
Critics might be wishing that the second film had ended the franchise, given the movie’s 17% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. “A step down from an already clunky original, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 goes through the motions with all the grace of a malfunctioning animatronic,” reads the aggregator’s summary of critical consensus. Audiences like the movie a lot more, sending it to an 82% Popcornmeter rating, with a consensus summary that reads, “With a satisfying helping of fan service, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 ups the ante, delivering richer atmosphere and more scream-inducing scares worthy of its lore.”
ScreenRant’s Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 review sides with the critical consensus over the audience viewpoint, calling the horror sequel out for “drowning in its own lore,” while labeling it “bloated.” Says the article, “Outside a few effective moments, there’s very little to recommend about FNAF 2 for those who would like more than a multimillion-dollar vehicle for game lore. The dialogue is clunky and almost universally awkwardly performed, much more so than in the first movie.” It continues, “The tonal mix of horror and silliness feels more jarring than complementary, and the filmmaking, which could accomplish so much just by sticking to genre fundamentals, is often egregiously sedate.“
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 star Lillard is set to expand his horror resume even more when he stars in the upcoming Mike Flanagan-produced TV series version of Stephen King’s Carrie.
- founded
-
January 16, 2007
- founders
-
Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph
