Pierre Tsigaridis’ Frankie, Maniac Woman turns the slasher psychodrama subgenre on its head … right after it decapitates it, of course
I‘m sure a lot of people want to describe Frankie, Maniac Woman as a femcel slasher movie. I doubt that’s the intentions of director Pierre Tsigaridis, but people are going to read into the film a TON of subtext he probably never intended.
Personally, I was surprised to find out the director of the film was a man — not that the movie necessarily feels like a pro-feminist screed (although it is, at least to some extent), but because of its odd subversion of the old “male gaze” canard. Visually speaking, it’s not a movie that slobbers over female flesh — rather, it almost feels like the camera itself has a fear of (if not outright disgust over) the bodies of women.
Which makes sense, considering the subject material. The titular character is played by Dina Silva, and to say that she’s a hot mess is putting it mildly to an absurd, borderline irresponsible degree. She’s a singer with some obvious talent, but since she lives in looks-conscious Los Angeles, she’s having a hard time landing any gigs. She’s too plus-sized, one agent tells her. She’s too Hispanic, another says. She chain smokes throughout the movie and has constant flashbacks to memories of her mother — a rail thin prostitute.
If you’ve seen this movie’s spiritual predecessor Maniac from 1980, you already KNOW where this thing is headed. But for the uninitiated, any and all doubts are removed in the film’s opening scene, in which Frankie dons a crappy Spirit Halloween mask, grabs some VERY sharp kitchen implements and proceeds to disembowel a couple of Playboy models just for the LULZ.
So yeah, it’s everything you’d EXPECT a movie called Frankie, Maniac Woman to be. And then some.
Silva’s performance really is the anchor of the movie and the thing that elevates it to almost go out of your way to catch it status. It’s a film about unrealistic societal standards, of course, but it’s also a film about self-loathing … and what happens when somebody self-loathes to the point the loath attaches itself to everybody around her. Sure, there are healthier ways to work through her trauma than butchering helpless delivery pizza customers to death, but if she actually did any of them we wouldn’t have a movie. Realism has to suffer for the sake of art sometimes, you know?
It’s a decent character profile of a madwoman, but it’s all done tongue firmly in cheek. The dialogue verges into straight parody at times, to the point Frankie can’t help but toss in a few Freddy Krueger like puns whenever she offs somebody. The kills are hyper gory to the point of being cartoonishly surreal, which both helps and hinders the movie in different ways. It never feels 100 percent serious, even when it obviously should. Which is probably the biggest tonal problem with Frankie, Maniac Woman as a whole.
You pretty much have an idea of which characters are going to die horrendous deaths as soon as they’re introduced. The sexual harasser at the gym? Oh, you KNOW he’s going to get it, and get it spectacularly, he does. There’s a pretty good scene where Frankie ALMOST considers granting mercy to one victim, but for the sake of the plot you instinctually know how things are bound to play out. It’s a fairly staid movie for the first hour … and then the final act begins.
It’s HARD to talk about the last 30 minutes of this movie, because doing that spoils the entirety of the film. As delicately as I can put it, let’s just say that Frankie ends up revisiting an obscure (but important) element of her formative years in this wildly stylized set-up that you KNOW is a figment of her imagination. There seems to be a very obvious twist coming, but you know I’m not going to tell you outright in this review. All I can say is that some people are going to like how this movie ends and some people are going to hate it. And I mean HATE it.
Frankie, Maniac Woman is an interesting if not frustrating movie — and most times, it’s interesting and frustrating for the very same reasons. It’s a mesmerizing movie from an aesthetic level, which means the scenes sometimes linger on the merely superficial for far too long. The audio design here is great, too (especially when we hear the main character’s overlapping, incongruent thoughts mid-kill), but a few musical cues are recycled … which, again, makes sense considering a specific plot point, but that’s not to say it isn’t irritating.
There’s a good ensemble cast in Frankie, Maniac Woman, but it’s obviously Dina’s movie. I’m not sure if I’d consider her performance strong enough to rocket her into the pantheon of all time slasher movie villainesses, but it’s definitely one of the more unique anti-final girl roles you’ll see in a genre movie this year. Not all of Frankie, Maniac Woman works, but the most effective parts are VERY effective.
By the way, Silva also co-wrote the movie alongside Tsigaridis, which makes me wonder just how much of the film — consciously or subconsciously — is autobiographical on her part. Granted, I’m not insinuating that she has frozen heads in her freezer in real life, but there are nonetheless a few scenes in the film where it feels like she isn’t pretending to convey certain emotions.
Ultimately I enjoyed Frankie, Maniac Woman. It’s rough around the edges at times and there are some scenes that probably could’ve been shortened, but the overall effect is pretty strong, even if an obvious “moral” to the story seems non-existent.
Then again, if you’re waltzing into a slasher movie, even one as gloriously post-post-modern as this one, looking for something uplifting about the human condition … well, you obviously lost the plot a LONG time ago.
DIRECTOR: Pierre Tsigaridis
WRITER(S): Pierre Tsigaridis, Dina Silva
STARRING: Dina Silva, Daniella Mendoza, Tim Fox, Desma Triplett
STUDIO: The Rancon Company, Two Witches Films
DISTRIBUTOR: Two Witches Films
LANGUAGE: English
RUNTIME: 95 minutes
RELEASE DATE: July 14, 2026 (VOD)
