Grimmfest 2025 Review: Frankie, Maniac Woman — Pierre Tsigaridis and Dina Silva Deliver Blood and Chaos

Dina Silva stars as Frankie in Pierre Tsigaridis’s gore-soaked Grimmfest 2025 entry, Frankie, Maniac Woman.

When Pierre Tsigaridis drops a film, we pay attention. Since Two Witches put him firmly on our radar, his collaborations with producer Maxim Raccoon have always come with an expectation: blood, brutality, and bold choices. With Frankie, Maniac Woman—co-written and headlined by Dina Silva—those elements are here in spades, even if the story doesn’t always land as hard as the carnage.

The feature expands on Tsigaridis’s 2019 short I Who Have No One, where a young woman’s obsession with beauty standards leads her down a murderous path. In this version, Silva stars as Frances—better known as Frankie—a compulsive eater and talented musician with a hidden trauma. She fronts a real-life band, Diana and the Shapeshifters, and her natural charisma comes through on screen. Frankie is funny, magnetic, and unstable, unraveling under the weight of her past and a toxic relationship with Jerome (played by Tsigaridis himself).

The film plays with fragmented structure—black-and-white sequences, flashbacks, and fevered bursts of violence that match Frankie’s fractured psyche. The use of maniac in the title isn’t just a flourish; at times the film feels like a spiritual cousin to Maniac or Maniac Cop, with gore that proudly wears its 1980s slasher DNA. By the finale, Frankie’s rage is unleashed on a parade of scantily clad victims, stacking the body count high with a smile.

Like Two Witches, the performances hinge on intense facial work, and Silva proves she can deliver the kind of expressive, guttural energy that Tsigaridis thrives on. Where Traumatika leaned into a different style, Frankie, Maniac Woman returns to the director’s preferred playground of hysteria, carnage, and excess.

But the film isn’t without flaws. While the gore is plentiful and the performances committed, the story itself feels shaky, stretched from a short that might have worked better in its original form. The tonal shifts don’t always connect, and the dramatic change of setting disrupts the impact. As much as we enjoy seeing Silva and Tsigaridis cut loose, the film ultimately struggles to find an identity beyond spectacle.

That said, there’s plenty of fun to be had for gorehounds. The French boys and their LA collaborators are busy filmmakers, and their output continues to champion practical gore, wild energy, and fearless performances. Even when the story misses, the commitment to visceral cinema is undeniable.

2.5 out of 5. A messy, bloody descent into mania—more enjoyable in pieces than as a whole, but a reminder that Tsigaridis and crew never hold back.