Is there a single work of horror fiction more influential than Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? The 1818 novel — in which the titular scientist successfully manages to reanimate the dead — has been adapted, reimagined, or served as a major influence over countless works of art of all varieties, including one of the greatest horror movies of all time: director James Whale’s Frankenstein from 1931. It looks like we have not seen the last of these homages with the upcoming release of The Bride!
Just by hearing the title alone, you can probably already guess that this upcoming horror movie is not just another reinterpretation of Shelley’s original story, but, more specifically, one of the classic cinematic thrillers it inspired. So, who is the mastermind at work and who's portraying the creations? We will tell you that and more about The Bride! in the following guide.
What Is The Bride! Release Date?
The Bride! comes alive on September 26, 2025, hitting theaters just in time for the spookiest time of the year. We imagine that, with it falling so close to Halloween on our upcoming 2025 movie schedule, there are bound to be a number of couples dressing as the film’s versions of Frankenstein’s Monster and its bride.
Jessie Buckley Leads The Bride! Cast In The Title Role
Playing The Creature in 1931’s Frankenstein made Boris Karloff an instant horror movie icon. However, the main leads from The Bride! cast are already renowned veterans of the genre. Let’s review their greatest hits, as well as that of the rest of the star-studded ensemble.
Jessie Buckley (The Monster’s Bride)
Before she was cast as the strange, eponymous creature from The Bride!, Jessie Buckley fell prey to strange phenomena in Netflix’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things from 2020, the 2022 Alex Garland movie, Men, and as the lead character in the video game The Dark Pictures: The Devil in Me the same year. The Irish actor — who received an Academy Award nomination for 2022’s The Lost Daughter — also faced horrifying circumstances in HBO’s historical miniseries, Chernobyl, and in the Women Talking cast as Mariche.
Christian Bale (Frankenstein’s Monster)
Before he was cast as Frankenstein’s Monster (and not “Frankenstein,” as many still mistakenly refer to the creature as), Christian Bale breathed life into one of the most terrifying modern horror villains, American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, and played a man plagued by terrifying visions in 2004’s The Machinist. The following year, he became one of the best Batman actors when Christopher Nolan cast him in the first of three live-action Batman movies and went on to win an Oscar for 2010’s The Fighter and earn nominations for American Hustle, The Big Short, and Vice.
Penelope Cruz
Coincidentally, Javier Bardem was set to play The Creature in the Dark Universe’s cancelled Bride of Frankenstein reboot before his wife and frequent collaborator, Penelope Cruz, was cast in an undisclosed role in The Bride!. The Academy Award-winning actor (for 2008’s Vicky Christina Barcelona, which also stars Bardem) has her own creepy acting credits to boast — such as Vanilla Sky and Gothika — but is even better known for dramas like Blow from 2001 and 2006’s Volver, and popcorn flicks like 2005’s Sahara and the fourth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Annette Bening
The closest Annette Bening has to come starring in a horror film before joining The Bride! cast was when she played Barbara Land in Tim Burton’s uproarious 1996 alien invasion movie, Mars Attacks!, which she notably preceded with her feature debut in the classic John Candy movie, 1988’s The Great Outdoors, and her first Oscar-nominated role in 1990’s The Grifters. She has since received four more Academy Award nominations — for American Beauty, Being Julia, The Kids are Alright, and Nyad — joined the MCU Marvel movies with a role in Captain Marvel, and more recently led the Peacock miniseries Apples Never Fall in 2024.
Peter Sarsgaard
Peter Sarsgaard — who has a close connection with the director that we will cover soon — broke into the mainstream with his chilling performance in 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry before starring in more straightforward horror like The Cell, The Skeleton Key, and Orphan. He received a Golden Globe nomination for his role in 2003’s Shattered Glass — one of several biopics on his resume, including Pawn Sacrifice and Jackie — and, like Bale, has been in a few DC movies — namely 2009’s Green Lantern and 2022’s The Batman.
Julianne Hough
Before The Bride!, Blumhouse 2015 thriller Curve marked the horror debut of Julianne Hough, who came to prominence as one of the main dancers on Dancing with the Stars, which earned her an Emmy for choreography in 2018. She made her major acting debut in 2010’s Burlesque, followed by the 2011 remake of Footloose and yet another music movie, Rock of Ages, in 2012, and led back-to-back redemption dramas (Safe Haven and Paradise) in 2013. Hough appeared opposite Zac Efron and Robert DeNiro in 2016’s Dirty Grandpa and her last film credit was the 2018 body-building biopic, Bigger.
John Magaro
John Magaro’s eclectic career includes a few horror movies (such as Wes Craven’s My Soul to Take and 2018’s Overlord), several dramas — like Carol, Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark, and acclaimed A24 movie Past Lives — and quite a few biopics, including 2014’s Unbroken and Big George Foreman from 2023. He can also cross “comic book adaptation star” off his bucket list , having been a part of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy cast as Leonard Peabody (a.k.a. Harold Jenkins).
Jeannie Berlin
The Bride! will mark the horror debut of Jeannie Berlin, who is best known for her Oscar-nominated performance in the 1972 rom-com, The Heartbreak Kid. She more recently starred in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2014 crime thriller Inherent Vice, Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical 2022 drama, The Fabelmans, and A24’s You Hurt My Feelings from 2023.
Jake Gyllenhaal
Another The Bride! cast member with a close connection to the director is Peter Sarsgaard’s Presumed Innocent co-star and Academy Award-nominated Brokeback Mountain actor Jake Gyllenhaal, who has really done it all. He has horror movies — like 2001’s high school movie classic Donnie Darko and Netflix’s Velvet Buzzsaw — crime dramas — such as Zodiac and Nightcrawler — and even superhero movies — namely his great performance as Spider-Man villain, Mysterio, in Spider-Man: Far From Home — under his belt.
What The Bride! Is About
According to the official logline for The Bride! (per Deadline), the film takes place in 1930s Chicago and follows “a lonely Frankenstein” (which, I am assuming, the author really means “lonely Frankenstein’s Monster”) who enlists the help of a scientist named Dr. Euphronius to create a romantic partner for himself. After they successfully reanimate a young, beautiful murder victim, not only does romance bloom, but so does a cultural revolution with her at the center.
The story takes inspiration from one of the most romantic horror movies, 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein — the first direct follow-up sequel to Universal’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel in which the titular scientist (played by Colin Clive and given the first name “Henry” here) creates a romantic companion (played by Elsa Lanchester) for his Creature. It should be noted that The Bride! is not an official Universal Monsters reboot like Leigh Whannell’s upcoming Wolf Man movie, but an original production under Warner Bros.
Maggie Gyllenhaal Writes And Directs
The mad scientist behind The Bride! is Maggie Gyllenhaal, who made her feature-length directorial debut in 2022 with her adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s 2006 novel, The Lost Daughter, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. The Netflix original movie also starred the aforementioned Jessie Buckley and Peter Sarsgaard, who is Gyllenhaal’s real-life spouse.
The filmmaker also previously starred alongside her sibling, Jake, in a number of films — most famously Donnnie Darko, in which they also played brother and sister — and replaced Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes in 2008’s The Dark Knight, opposite Christiane Bale as Bruce Wayne. Gyllenhaal has also given acclaimed performances in films like Sherrybaby, Frank, and The Kindergarten Teacher.
The Bride! Started Filming In April 2024
Maggie Gyllenhaal first revealed that The Bride! was in production with a photo of the film’s official slate that she shared on Instagram in April 2024. The post was accompanied by two other pictures offering a first look at our protagonists.
Buckley’s Bride boasts a white, wavy hairdo a black lipstick that extends past the corner of her lips into blotches you might see on a Rorschach test. As “Frank” (which I, once again, believe is meant to refer to the Creature and not the creator), Bale has large stitching running across his forehead and chest, where a tattoo reading “Hope” can also be found. We have certainly never seen a Frankenstein’s Monster and a Bride like this.
The Bride! Is Not The Only Frankenstein Reboot In The Works
For anybody who just cannot get enough of cinematic homages to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, you may be the happy to learn that the The Bride! is not the only adaptation expected to come out in 2025. Variety reported in 2023 that there is another film in the works from Academy Award-winning writer and director Guillermo del Toro starring Oscar Isaac in the title role, Jacob Elordi as the Creature, and modern Scream Queen Mia Goth in an undisclosed role, among others.
The film, tentatively named Frankenstein, will be made available to stream exclusively with a Netflix subscription when it is released. In fact, the platform was originally meant to distribute Gyllenhaal’s film before backing away from the project in favor of Del Toro.
Even with Guillermo del Toro at the helm of a competing Frankenstein-inspired thriller, with a unique vision and a talented cast, Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! is sure to be fire.
