THE STORY – Frankelda, a determined 19th-century Mexican writer, journeys into her subconscious to face the monsters she’s written about. Guided by a tormented prince, she must restore the balance between fiction and reality before it’s too late.
THE CAST – Mireya Mendoza, Arturo Mercado & Luis Leonardo Suárez
THE TEAM – Arturo Ambriz & Roy Ambriz (Directors/Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 113 Minutes
There’s something intimate and slightly unsettling about stop-motion animation. Each twitch of movement is the ghost of a hand, the whisper of an artist behind the frame. For horror, it’s the perfect vehicle – a medium that itself defies natural motion, summoning something uncanny and alive from inanimate objects. From the gothic whimsy of Tim Burton to Robert Morgan’s aptly named “Stopmotion,” this animation has a special relationship with the monstrous and the mysterious. Now, into this form of artistry comes “I Am Frankelda,” Mexico’s first stop-motion animated feature.
Having its North American premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival, “I Am Frankelda“ is nothing short of a macabre marvel. Crafted with what feels like a mix of a loving hand and a haunted heart, it’s a visually arresting dark fantasy about grief, imagination, and the transformative power of storytelling. A film expansion of the Mexican HBO series, “Frankelda’s Book of Spooks,“ this ambitious film from the Ambriz Brothers carves out a new space in the canon of animated horror. It’s part literary ghost story, part political fantasy, and entirely a celebration of spooky storytelling. With its swirling orchestral score and shadow-drenched sets – graveyards, gothic towns, and dark palaces – it invites the viewer into a fully immersive nightmare realm that feels equal parts “Pan’s Labyrinth“ and “The Nightmare Before Christmas”.
This story follows Francesca (voiced by Mireya Mendoza), a young girl reeling from the loss of her mother and the weight of a world that views her imagination as something to outgrow. In her pain, she writes a tale about a tormented prince named Herneval (voiced by Arturo Mercado Jr.) whose world – the Realm of Spooks – is kept alive only through the nightmares they give humankind. In a way, it feels like a darker version of “Monsters, Inc.“ – another film about a monster world that revels in the scare. But the nightmares here are no longer working, and the prince’s world and his loved ones in it are fading. In this realm, where creatures like the arachnid Royal Nightmarer, Procustes (voiced by Luis Leonardo Suárez), orchestrate fear like symphonies, terror is survival. Francesca’s stories, filled with genuine anguish and passion, become the last lifeline to a fading world.
The film interweaves Francesca’s reality with the decaying gothic dreamscape of the prince’s realm. Her writing literally reshapes their world. Herneval, desperate to save his ailing parents and his kingdom, journeys to find the girl whose stories might restore the realm. Meanwhile, conspiracies bubble within the Court of Terror, as Procustes and his council, tired of depending on humans for their livelihood, plot to manipulate, divide, and eventually invade the human world.
What makes “I Am Frankelda“ so captivating is its sheer craftsmanship. The animation is stunning: grotesque yet beautiful, with creatures that could have crawled from Guillermo del Toro’s sketchbook. The attention to detail in every frame commands admiration. The film is so detailed, capturing both the terror and tenderness of its universe.
If there’s a flaw, it’s that the film occasionally buckles under its own ambition. The mythology here is dense, even hard to follow, but it’s always richly textured. Unexpectedly, to a viewer unfamiliar with “Frankelda’s Book of Spooks,“ the film contains several musical interludes that seem out of place amidst the otherwise haunting atmosphere. But these are minor specters in a film so full of vision and voice.
“I Am Frankelda“ is a love letter to spooky stories and to those who write them. It’s about the agony of being misunderstood, the thrill of creating something only you can see, and the strength that comes from owning your nightmares. As Francesca grows from girl to young woman, she becomes Frankelda. It’s a pseudonym that acts as a reclamation of her identity as a writer. She takes control of her own narrative by writing her own stories to conquer her own fears.
“I Am Frankelda” doesn’t just ask whether nightmares are bad; it suggests they are necessary. Horror, the film argues, helps us confront what we can’t explain; what lies hidden in the depths of a soul. And like Francesca, it offers us a pen with which to rewrite our worst stories.
