“The Bride!”
Genre: Sci-Fi/Romance
Rated: (R)
Released: March 6, 2026
Running Time: 2 hrs 7 minutes
Trigger Warning: strong bloody violence, drug use, gore, full nudity, sexual content, strong language
Rating: 9.5/10
2026 is shaping up to be one of the best years
for cinema. With hits like “Wuthering Heights,” “Scream 7” and “28 Years Later: The Bone
Temple,” it’s only supposed to get better from here.
“The Bride!” was released on March 6, 2026, in theaters. Featuring names like Christian Bale
as Frankenstein’s Monster and Jessie Buckley as The Bride, it’s no wonder the movie was set up
for to be a success. It was classified as a sci-fi/romance movie, but at its core, it focused
on women’s rights issues, since the film was set in the late 1930s. With And it being Women’s
History Month this March, it fits perfectly into the rest of the story without taking away from
the other aspects of the story.
The movie is surreal right off the bat, with the audience being introduced to author Mary
Shelley (Jessie Buckley). She talks about being dead, and wanting to create a sequel to her 1818
novel “Frankenstein,”, through possessing a young woman named Ida (also Jessie Buckley).
Though only 10 minutes into the film, the lighting is overtly dramatic and fits the tense,
adrenaline-filled mood seamlessly. Combined with the different camera angles for Mary and
then for Ida, as well as their back-and-forth control of the body, it immediately grabs the
audience’s attention.
Soon, Ida dies, being killed by these creepy, mobster old guys for acting possessed, which
she was. Then, we meet Frankenstein’s Monster, who goes by Frank most of the film.
He traveled to Chicago, trying to find Dr. Cornelia Euphronious, who published her
work on “reinvigoration” and the like under just C. Euphronious, since it would’ve been
much more difficult to be published as a female scientist.
Frank explains to her that he’s lonely, having been reanimated back in 1819, the
century has been Hell on Earth. He convinces Dr. Euphronious to help him dig up a dead
woman, Ida, and bring her back to life. The Doctor succeeds for the most part, but the black
solution she used, presumably as a replacement for bodily fluids lost in decomposition, stained
her cheek and mouth when she coughed it up upon being reinvigorated. Before, she could’ve
passed as an odd, but human, woman. Now, she was a monster like Frank.
Coming back had its consequences in that The Bride couldn’t remember her life before “the
accident,”, as everyone calls it. Though for a little over half the film, Frank keeps lying to her about
how amazing everything was before her death; their wedding, the proposal, small stories about
different dates they’d been on, etc. Despite this, they got along pretty well, all things considered.
It was hard not to want to see them end up together, given how genuinely they treated each
other.
Frank, practically being a Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal) stan, takes them across the
American Northeast to the different theaters that premiered Reed’s movies. They become
almost like Bonnie and Clyde, killing the cops pursuing them, and constantly running from the
law.
Quick, impactful, and realistic gore that doesn’t slow the plot down at all, especially
the scene where Frank curb stomps a man.
Throughout this time together, they grow ever closer, even going as far as to kill people who
harass one or the other. Towards the end of the film, The Bride gets sexually assaulted by a cop
who pulls them over. Frank shoots him and his partner, with The Bride chewing the cop’s
tongue out shortly thereafter.
Even after The Bride finds out that Frank had lied to her about everything, and he gets killed,
she tries so hard to drag his body into the car and escape the ambush. Going as far as to drive
back from Niagara Falls to Chicago, where Dr. Euphronious is. She begs and pleads with her to
bring him back, which is peak romance.
Overall, it was a fabulous take on an old story.
Typically, romances are overdone, cringey, and a pain to get through, but viewers willI findfound
that the way The Bride! was done to be perfect.
The romance was a focus, but not too much that the other parts of the story, Frank, the mob,
police corruption, and the like, couldn’t be told. Being over two hours long, it never once
reached a lull that took the audience out of the movie. Captivating romances are few and far
between, but Maggie Gyllenhaal did the best job at it so far this year.
At 9.5At a 9.5/10, this film deserves much more than one rewatch. It left the audience
leaving the theatres in awe and wanting to see it again, just to catch the nitty-gritty details.
