The release of a full-length, stop motion animated film is a relatively infrequent occasion, given the amount of labor and resources necessary to produce one. I Am Frankelda is the first to receive a U.S. release so far in 2026, and the film is doubly notable for being the first Mexican stop motion feature. A Gothic-tinged musical fantasy directed and written by brothers Arturo and Roy Ambriz — which also serves as a prequel to their television series Frankelda’s Book of Spooks — I Am Frankelda is a vivid showcase for the filmmakers’ visual imagination and craftmanship. Given the scope of the accomplishment that I Am Frankelda marks, it’s a disappointment that the film’s unwieldy narrative and overreliance on aesthetic maximalism undermine its strengths.
The main conceit of I Am Frankelda is that there is a parallel world of creatures who both feed on and generate human fear. Called the Topus Terrenus, it is separated from the human world by a magical spiderweb, which can only be breached if a human’s fear of one of its nightmare-inducing denizens opens the portal. Francisca Imelda, a young girl in 19th-century Mexico, inadvertently provides such a bridge between Earth and the Topus Terrenus. An obsessive chronicler of scary stories, her imagination leads to the young Prince Herneval of the Topus Terrenus to briefly cross into the human world. When Francisca grows up, Herneval remembers her, and convinces her to leave her physical body behind and let her disembodied consciousness travel to the Topus Terrenus. The kingdom’s official “nightmare-teller,” a massive arachnoid creature named Procustes, has been faltering in his storytelling and agitating against the monarchy, and Herneval wants Francisca to replace him. Rejected by her earthbound community, Francisca readily complies, and renames herself Frankelda. Yet Procustes suspects the plan, and he ignites a revolt that Frankelda and Herneval must fight to stop.
The film’s narrative is conceptually complex and narratively convoluted, with new subplots and minor characters constantly popping up. The emotional heart of the story is Francisca/Frankelda’s soul-sustaining passion for writing horror stories, and her persistence despite constant pressure to quit. The twinned thematic focuses on nourishing creativity and never giving up are suitable enough for the children’s film I Am Frankelda is, but the intricacies of the Topus Terrenus may be difficult for even an adult viewer to fully wrap one’s head around. Existentially heady and politically byzantine — infighting and coup-plotting among a “clan” of seven mystical power-players play a prominent role in the film’s latter half — the Topus Terrenus is as logically confounding as it is immaculately designed. With visual flourishes including a sea of clouds with hands that reach out and sway in the wind, and a towering web that royals play like a harp to induce nightmares, there are plenty of visual treats to be found in this eerily whimsical realm — provided one does not worry too much about staying on top of every narrative detail.
The character designs are equally vivid. Procustes, with a lime-green face, tens of blinking eyes, and eight massive legs, is a standout, while Frankelda’s appearance as a glowing blue spirit with white-streaked curls charms in a similar fashion to the titular character of Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. Yet surprisingly enough, the stunning renderings of colorful characters and uncanny environments work to the film’s detriment as often as to its advantage: with so much to look at, all the time, the viewer never has a chance to breathe, and thus is susceptible to visual overwhelm. This problem is especially acute in musical and action sequences. In these scenes, the directors tend to use quick and frequent cuts, dramatic camera movement, and sometimes brief flashes of different animation styles. The result is that it becomes difficult to know where to look and what to look at, and even more challenging to process the narrative information meant to be conveyed.
For all its faults, I Am Frankelda still deserves plentiful credit for its considerable ambition and its advancement of an undervalued medium. One hopes that the Ambriz brothers are given plentiful opportunities to expand upon their accomplishments and, hopefully, refine their narrative sensibilities. As it stands, the well-crafted but chaotic I Am Frankelda is easier to admire than it is to enjoy.
DIRECTOR: Arturo Amrbiz & Roy Ambriz; CAST: Mireya Mendoza, Arturo Mercado Jr., Luis Leonardo Suarez, Gaby Cárdenas; DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix; STREAMING: June 12; RUNTIME: 1 hr.
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