Overview
- The film, which premiered on Netflix and in select theaters on June 12, 2026, is the first feature‑length stop‑motion production made in Mexico and serves as a prequel to the 2021 Cartoon Network Latin America series Frankelda’s Book of Spooks.
- Brothers Arturo and Roy Ambriz wrote and directed the film through their Cinema Fantasma studio with creative and logistical support from Guillermo del Toro.
- The story follows 19th‑century writer Francisca Imelda — later Frankelda — whose horror tales animate a parallel realm where a royal family and a jealous Nightmare‑Teller clash over authorship and power.
- Critics uniformly praise the film’s handmade stop‑motion craft, mixed‑media design and musical sequences while commonly noting pacing problems, an overcomplicated second half and thinly resolved narrative threads.
- Reviewers and the filmmakers recommend the original Spanish musical track as the definitive way to experience the movie, and the project’s scale and Netflix release could create new pathways for Mexican animation and for the many first‑time feature crew who worked on it.