Movie Review: I Am Frankelda 9-20-26
In 19th-century Mexico, Francisca Imelda is a gifted writer whose dark tales are ignored and dismissed. Forced to suppress her voice, she refuses to give up, even as many try to silence her. But when she is thrust into her subconscious, the very monsters she created come to life. Guided by Herneval, a tormented prince trapped between dreams and nightmares, she must restore balance between fiction and reality before both realms collapse. Meanwhile, the sinister writer Procustes and his conspirators plot to seize control. As Francisca (who goes under the name of Frankelda) and Herneval grow closer, their bond becomes both a strength and a curse. To rewrite their fate, she must confront a love that defies existence and reclaim her power as a storyteller--before dark forces consume her imagination and reveal horrors beyond her creation.
Even though the first act is slow and the animation obviously isn’t as polished as what Aardman and Laika put out, I Am Frankelda makes up for it with enchanting songs, creative albeit familiar world-building, and intriguing characters. Francisca is a talented horror writer, but secretly feels she isn’t good enough or that her work is just ‘mediocre’. This is something many artists can agree with, since we usually don’t think our work is good enough to share with the public. To make matters worse, horror stories aren’t even that popular where Francisca comes from.
Along with the handsome owl-like Hernevel, the villain of the movie is a massive spider monster named Procrustes, who later kidnaps Francisca to force her to write scary stories for the nightmare world in order to keep their world alive. I find this interesting because 2025 was a year where animated movie villains included twin wizards, scheming cats, aliens, and a literal wall of fire, many of whom were willing to kill their protagonists, yet I Am Frankelda simply had a giant spider who didn’t even bother using venom.
Along with the first act being a bit slow, I feel that I Am Frankelda was a bit too long, with a running time of 104 minutes. Yes, there were longer animated movies that year with Zootopia 2, David, and Mamoru Hosada’s Scarlet, but this movie also doubles as the prequel to the Mexican Cartoon Network show Frankelda’s Book of Spooks. Many animated movies associated with the shows that they’re based on, whether they were released in theaters, direct-to-video, or streaming/TV originals, are usually shorter than animated movies from the likes of WDAS, Pixar, DreamWorks, and Sony.
Despite it’s flaws, I Am Frankelda is a stop-motion movie I recommend watching every Halloween alongside The Nightmare before Christmas, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and Corpse Bride. To get a full enjoyment of Francesca’s adventure, I recommend watching the movie in its original language: Spanish.
Rating. 3.45 stars out of 5
