A real DEAD ringer for love

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

- REVIEWS BY DAMON SMITH

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.

A curious black-and-white framing device introduces Jessie Buckley as writer Shelley, who feels robbed of precious time by her brain tumour.