FrightFest review – The Mannequin (2025)
Writer-director John Berardo made Init!ation, a solid campus slasher film with a #metoo theme. Here, he spins a ghost story around the Pieces/Residencia gambit of the serial killer who collects body parts to assemble an ideal woman – in this case, the murderer was a pin-up photographer who selected limbs and organs over the years from different decades’ notion of female beauty. They never found the bits and pieces, but his abandoned studio space is home to a mannequin which sometimes seems possessed.
In a complicated set-up, a fashion designer (Gabriella Rivera) rents the ‘historic’ Los Angeles building as a workspace – it’s a big, empty room with windows – and succumbs to the curse, though her death is put down to suicide. Her sister Liana (Isabella Gomez), with whom she had a complex relationship, moves into the scene of the crime and becomes convinced that it’s haunted. Berardo, who plays the sinister real estate agent himself, stages a few black and white flashbacks with a William Castle touch – and composer Alexander Arntzen gets creative with a theremin, giving the whole thing a pleasingly retro feel.
The story is basic, but Berardo continues to be interested in female friendships under stress – Lindsay LaVanchy, who was in Init!ation, has an unusual role as a best friend who is also a bit of a pain.
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