Five Nights at Freddy's 2 Receives a Disappointing Rating

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 is rated PG13, just like the 2023 original. That could put off long-time fans who rallied for a bloodier sequel, which in turn would have been inappropriate for younger audiences.

The Motion Picture Association has rated Five Nights at Freddy's 2 PG13 "for violent content, terror and some language", which makes the film accessible to a broader audience. That description suggests a tamer sequel, however, because the 2023 original received the same rating "for strong violent content, bloody images and language." Franchise fans expected a darker movie adaptation with explicit violence.

10 mainline Five Nights at Freddy's video games have been released to date, and depending on the region and platform, most were rated T for Teen (13+). That's consistent with the films' ratings, even though Five Nights at Freddy's 4 was initially rated M for Mature (17+). The series terrified players largely through off-screen violence and jumpscares, and that worked in the films to an extent. Still, the games drew from lore that became more disturbing with each new installment, and that's what many fans wanted in the sequel.

Blumhouse Boss Promised a Bloodier Five Nights at Freddy's Sequel

The update comes three months after Blumhouse boss Jason Blum promised Five Nights at Freddy's 2 would be more graphic, in response to fan feedback. "We took lots of the criticism, saying it was not scary, lacked blood or strong scenes. We decided to implement all that in the sequel," he said via CBR. Series star Josh Hutcherson also teased that the sequel would be bigger because they're adapting more of the expanded lore.

"It's much bigger; the stakes are higher," he told Esquire. "There's more animatronics being brought in, different animatronics being brought in, and the world just opens up in a big way. We're finding the balance right now of building this world and expanding it in a really cool way, but also making sure the characters stay really grounded. That's something that I really think that we all fought for in the first film, because this world that was created in Five Nights at Freddy's, it's so out-there. It's gonna be scarier, too, actually."

Fans can rest assured that the sequel will make the most out of its PG13 rating. Director Emma Tammi is still at the helm, and she confirmed they pushed the limits in the first film. "That meant the kills needed to be executed in a certain way. In some cases, we leaned into shadows and silhouettes and sound design to really feel the moment in an impactful way without showing any gore," she told Inverse in 2023.

A Quiet Place, the Insidious films and even Drag Me to Hell prove that horror can deliver scares without explicit gore and violence. The Five Nights at Freddy's games were geared toward teens and young adults, but the franchise fan base has since transcended those demographics. "[I] actually really appreciated that we were taking the PG-13 approach for this because there's such a younger audience for FNAF, and we didn't want to exclude them," Tammi said of the original film.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 hits theaters on Dec. 5.