20 Recent Horror Movies That Made ONE Huge Mistake
17. The Mary Shelley Framing Device - The Bride!
Maggie Gyllenhaal certainly swung for the fences with her bold reimagining of Bride of Frankenstein, though it's ultimately with good reason that the movie's marketing shied away from revealing its totally baffling framing device.
As it turns out, Frankenstein author Mary Shelley is actually a character in the film, also played by Jessie Buckley, who speaks to us from beyond the grave, explaining that there was another story she wanted to tell after Frankenstein.
And then Shelley proceeds to quite literally possess the film's protagonist, Ida (Buckley), a downtrodden woman living in 1936 Chicago.
It's an inherently puzzling choice and one made more inexplicable by the glimpses of Shelley that regularly peer through, Ida having over-the-top outbursts where her accent shifts from American to English and then back again.
Buckley certainly gives it her all in the role, but ultimately this erratic approach is more grating than compelling, quickly becoming an irritating albatross left hanging around the film's neck.