Pierre Tsigaridis and Two Witches Films kick the door in with Frankie, Maniac Woman, a slasher that starts strong and never pretends to be polite. The opening kill hits hard, letting you know right away this thing is not here to play. It immediately oozes personality, attitude, and gore. This is DIY punk horror through and through. Raw. Ugly. Loud. Proud.
Starting in black and white, the film somehow looks sharp as hell. Every frame feels deliberate. The lack of color adds an uneasy vibe that works surprisingly well, making everything feel harsher and more uncomfortable. Two Witches Films continues to impress with each project. The style has always been there, but the quality keeps stepping up.
Dina Silva as Frankie is intimidating in the best way. She barely needs dialogue to sell it. Her facial expressions do most of the work, shifting from vulnerability to full-blown menace without saying a word. She feels scary, sad, and unhinged all at once. When Frankie kills, you can tell Silva is having fun with it. That energy bleeds right through the screen.
Then there’s the mask. Holy shit. The mask is scary as fuck and somehow has its own personality. It feels like a little Jason, a little Leatherface, but fully Frankie. Old school and fresh at the same time. Gross and strangely beautiful. Once the mask shows up, the movie levels up immediately.
The makeup and effects team deserve serious props. The kills are gnarly, brutal, and often make up for the slower stretches in between. The dialogue can be weird and awkward at times, but when the blood flows, none of that matters. There’s a standout moment where the film jumps from black and white into color during a brutal kill. And god damn, the color pops beautifully. It’s intense as hell, shocking, and then it snaps right back to black and white like nothing happened.
Later on, when the film commits to color again, the color grade looks so good it almost makes you wish the whole movie had stayed that way. Everything pops. The blood. The sets. The kills. It looks incredible.
Desma Triplett deserves a shout-out because she is absolutely beautiful, and every time she’s on screen, she owns it. Honestly, every girl Frankie kills is hot. So even if this movie doesn’t fully click for you, at least you get some eye candy before the carnage.
There’s a jump back to 1997 that shows young Frankie channel-surfing through horror movies, late-night singers, and sleazy infomercials while eating junk food. Her mom lectures her about her weight while having sex in the next room. It’s gross, uncomfortable, and oddly effective. There’s a reveal here tied to her mother and who’s in that room, and it adds to Frankie’s lore in a way that actually makes sense. No spoilers, but it works.
Frankie being an insanely good singer, is one of the wildest juxtapositions in the film. Dina Silva can really sing, like compete with Adele's level of singing. That contrast between brutal slasher violence and genuine vocal talent is bizarre and memorable.
That said, not everything works. The commentary about the music industry dismissing fat singers gets repetitive fast. It’s clearly personal and sincere, but it drags. At a certain point, it starts feeling like filler between kills. You spend a lot of time just waiting for Frankie to snap again, which is probably the point, but it gets boring anyway.
The final act is where the film really starts to test your patience. After all the chaos and bloodshed earlier, it slows way down. You know something is coming, but it takes forever to get there. By this point, you’re basically just waiting for more killing. The mask is still cool, the girls are still hot, especially the Asian chick with the sparkly breasts, but the tension overstays its welcome. It honestly starts to feel like it’ll never end.
By the time the credits roll, Frankie, Maniac Woman feels divisive as hell. The kills are great. The effects rule. The mask is iconic. The performances range from solid to uneven, but nothing is distractingly bad. Dina Silva carries the movie hard and gives it heart, even when it loses momentum.
I’m sure this movie will absolutely find its audience. Unfortunately, I’m probably not it. The blood, the girls, and the unhinged energy kept me going, but not enough to fully save it. Still, it’s mean, loud, and proudly unhinged.
Jessie Hobson