Frankie, Maniac Woman

A glamorous, gory and narratively scattershot film in the long tradition of trash slashers, Frankie, Maniac Woman is the latest work by Pierre Tsigaridis, of Two Witches and Traumatika fame. Dina Silva co-wrote, and plays the title character, better known as Frances – only her friends call her Frankie, and she doesn’t have many of them. This is not, initially, because she’s a bloodthirsty serial killer. It likely has more to do with her self-hatred, which centres on the fact that she’s fat.

Ever since she was a child, Frankie has suffered taunts about her weight, initially from her mother, whose prolific sex life left the youngster feeling neglected and inadequate. As an adult, she finds fatphobia thwarting her efforts to build a career as a singer/songwriter – everyone admits that she has talent but tells her, pretty brutally, that she must drastically change her appearance before she’ll get a fair shot. Attempting to hang herself only to have the rope break – a common fatphobic joke which Tsigaridis renders here as an insult too far – she begins to have hallucinations about a figure from her past, a man who urges her to kill. The first time she takes that step, she’s deeply shaken and disorientated by it, but it gets easier from there.

Movie serial killers usually conform to a particular myth originating in the early Seventies: they have a type, a favoured method and, often, a particular set of rituals. Reality is generally a lot messier, and Frankie is, in this regard, an unusually realistic example. Yes, she wears a mask, but as she carries it with her everywhere, her actions can still be pretty impulsive. Her victims range from deeply obnoxious men, whose deaths viewers will probably cheer for, to women whose only offence is that they happen to be thin and conventionally attractive. This latter kind of murder seems particularly pleasing to her mentor, but leaves her confused and troubled. When one victim turns out to be a fan of her music, she feels real regret, and decides to stop. If only it were that easy.

As in his previous works, Tsigaridis demonstrates a lack of interest in logical narrative or character development. The film is wrapped up in a conventional structure, but within that space, ideas and events move more freely; Frances’ struggle with her urges is not linear, and the instability of her moods introduces an element of unpredictability. When not in kill mode, she’s still an awkward, self-effacing individual who is quick to surrender herself to any sort of kindness. Though the film is deliberately lacking in polish, Silva’s performance is impressive. It’s her ability to convince in these different states that holds the film together. Of course, when she finally lets loose, the director flattering her with shots borrowed from John Ford and Tobe Hooper, Frances is allowed to be magnificent.

The film does try to have its cake and eat it, challenging Hollywood’s take on female bodies whilst lingering on them with the gratuitousness of classic trash, especially when Frances is adopted by a group of models who treat her as a sort of rescue project. Throughout, we see that misogyny affects women regardless of body type, and at least one of the models also has a unhappy relationship with her weight. The men in the film are universally horrible. This creates a complex undercurrent of tragedy, as Frances’ violence is itself informed by misogyny, and inseparable from her tendency to self-harm. There is comedy throughout, but it’s often quite light. Rather than finding all his humour in bleakness, Tsigaridis and Silva weave comedy and tragedy together, letting each remain distinct, and in the process create a kind of discomfort that the genre rarely admits to.

Something of a departure for its director, the film is not altogether successful, but it is interesting, and suggests that both he and Silva are worth keeping an eye on.

Reviewed on: 08 Apr 2026