20 Recent Movies That Ruined INCREDIBLE Plots

The world has been long overdue a reimagination of Bride of Frankenstein, and a Maggie Gyllenhaal-helmed take starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale as The Bride and Frankenstein's monster respectively seemed primed for cinematic dynamite.

But in a classic case of a filmmaker getting overwhelmed by their own runaway ambition, Gyllenhaal became a little too infatuated with a half-baked frame narrative in which Frankenstein author Mary Shelley (also played by Buckley) possesses Buckley's protagonist Ida.

Brilliant though Buckley is, even she can't make sense of Ida's gratingly schizophrenic characterisation, switching accents and moods in a manner that's more obnoxiously slippery than enticingly unpredictable.

While Gyllenhaal clearly decided to swing for the fences with her $90 million budget, The Bride! is ultimately one of the more frustrating auteur misfires of recent years - a classic example of a filmmaker executing an unhinged idea without the strength of vision to nail the follow-through.