Macabre…ish Review: The Mannequin

The Mannequin, 2026/ 85 min.

The Bernard Family owned a building for 100 years, it operated as a photography studio by Jack Bernard (Jack Sochet) for decades. In 1955, models started disappearing and their body parts started turning up.

They all had one thing in common aside from being models, Jack Bernard. And so he became a suspect. He kept body parts as trophies and painted with their blood. No one knows why because in 1989 when his DNA was found. The police showed up and he killed himself.

And today, that building still stands and is under new ownership. It’s not long before bizarre events begin happening and people start dying and having gruesome things happen to them. Often in the presence of other people. It was like they were possessed and whatever possessed them forced them to mutilate themselves.

And not just themselves, sometimes they were made to attack others. And the attacks were always gruesome. One woman, Hazel (Lindsay LaVanchey), returned to her senses, actively sawing through her own neck. Another, Nadine (Shireen Lai), was forced to grind up her hand in a garbage disposal.

And when the current resident, Liana (Isabella Gomez), sought the help of a medium/exorcist, Peter (Maxwell Hamilton), who knows the history of the place, the spirit was there and very active. Hopefully, something can be done before anything else happens to her or her friends.

By the end, we’ll know what happened to the body parts in Jack Bernard’s collection and who’s haunting the building.

This film was written and directed by John Berardo. He also directed the slasher Initiation.  This movie is stylized, really nice color and soundtrack. And while it is incredibly gory and bloody, the story is intriguing. It’s got everything, including mistery and a decades old unsolved crime.