A real DEAD ringer for love

STYLISH REIMAGINING OF A HORROR CLASSIC COMES APART AT THE SEAMS DESPITE AN ELECTRIFYING LEAD PERFORMANCE FROM JESSIE BUCKLEY

- REVIEWS BY DAMON SMITH

Jessie Buckley as The Bride Christian Bale as Frank and Jake Gyllenhaal as Ronnie Reed

OVER the end credits of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s audacious reimagining of Mary Shelley's Gothic horror Frankenstein and 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett recounts a macabre tale of vampires, baying hounds and coffin-bangers in his novelty song Monster Mash.

"It was a graveyard smash!" he booms. “It caught on in a flash!”

The Bride! gleefully smashes skulls and offers flashes of creative brilliance but Gyllenhaal’s achingly stylish experiment in reanimation suffers a similar fate to Frankenstein's woebegotten creature.