The Mannequin review (2025)

The Mannequin is a well-acted horror thriller with above average production values massively undone by some questionable script decisions.

Director/screenwriter John Berardo doubles down on the script problems by an over-reliance on jump scares in an attempt to better convey the horror thriller tones his script can’t accomplish with The Mannequin.

The film gets off to a shaky start with an aspiring pin-up actress (Krystle Martin) getting killed by her lecherous photographer Jack Bernard (Jack Sachet) all under the watchful eye of a mannequin.

Berardo has good horror movie instincts, but the set lacks a 50s aesthetic more closely resembling a wide-open empty warehouse. Also, the mannequin has far more realistic and detailed features than would be the norm for the 50s.

Fortunately, he takes the film to modern times as decades later, aspiring fashion designer Sophia Rojas (Gabriella Rivera), buys the space. Berardo has a cameo as the clearly shady though harmless-presenting property owner.

Sophia is thrilled as she’s making her dreams come true. That’s not the case for her sister, Liana (Isabella Gomez, One Day at a Time), who’s stuck in a job with a tyrant supervisor and a relationship with Peter, a paranoia events historian podcaster (Maxwell Hamilton).

With her friends Nadine (Shireen Lai) getting married to her dream guy and Hazel (Lindsay LaVanchy) enjoying the single life, Liana decides she deserves better and end things with Peter. In fairness, Peter did seem like a bit of a bore and was endlessly sharing disgusting paranormal stories at the engagement party. Get your life, Peter.

Liana probably could have used the emotional support as days later she finds Sophia dead in her new workspace. This is where The Mannequin starts to fall into a predictably frustrating pattern as Berardo keeps erratically shifting the camera angles and making the music louder in an attempt to drum up some scares.

A year later, Liana returns from a grieving excursion in Italy and bizarrely decides to set up shop at Sophia’s former workspace. Liana also decides to keep the mannequin, seemingly just because the movie is called The Mannequin.

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Berardo really needed to come up with a convincing reason why Liana would literally return to the scene of the crime beyond wanting to finish what Sophia started. What would that have been? Unpacking? The official police report states Sophia killed herself, but Liana doesn’t believe for a second that her sister would have committed suicide at that place in her life.

Not wanting to let Liana deal with all of these very complicated emotions on her own, Hazel and Nadine keep a watchful eye on her. It doesn’t take long for the three women to start experiencing some paranormal encounters.

It feels like Berardo had some potentially interesting directions to take the script, like how Liana is using alcohol as a coping measure, Nadine not finding the bliss she envisioned after getting married and Hazel not having any one to process her grief with after her friends went their separate ways.

While most horror movies would falter once it gets more dialogue-heavy, that’s not a problem for The Mannequin as it actually leans into its strength — the cast. Gomez, Lai and LaVanchy make their characters sound and act like actual people. Their performances aren’t good enough for a horror movie so much as actual good performances.

The biggest problem for The Mannequin is Berardo can’t work around the plot holes he creates. Namely why would the women experience any kinds of paranormal activities when they’re not in the warehouse? Another concern is the inconsistency with the basic logic namely why some characters get killed and others simply get some minor cuts and bruises.

With some significant tweaks to the script, the film could have been so much stronger, but as is, The Mannequin feels like a very hollow horror experience.

Rating: 3 out of 10

Photo Credit: Jackrabbit Media

The Mannequin is available to watch or rent/buy on Amazon.

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