The Bride! Maggie Gyllenhaal Raises the Dead (and the Budget) – horror film trailer.

Ladies, gentlemen, and reanimated corpses, Maggie Gyllenhaal has kicked open the crypt door of cinema and shouted: “Bring me Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, and a budget larger than Frankenstein’s electricity bill!” Yes, The Bride! is stomping down the cinematic aisle in 2026, a film that promises equal measures of murder, passion, radical politics, and—if Peter Sarsgaard is to be believed—big dance numbers. Because what’s a resurrection without a little tap-dancing on the grave of subtlety?

The plot goes like this: Christian Bale’s Frankenstein, who appears to have misplaced both his monster and his therapist, heads to 1930s Chicago in search of Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening), who obligingly dusts off her necromancy starter kit. Together, they whip up The Bride (Jessie Buckley), a revived young woman who is less interested in domestic bliss and more into sparking social upheaval, outlaw romance, and possibly jazz-fuelled revolutions. Think Frankenstein meets Cabaret but with fewer sequins and more bolts.

Gyllenhaal, directing from her own script, is aiming for a bold, iconoclastic take—translation: the monster is now sensitive, the Bride isn’t waiting around to be defined by him, and Christian Bale is probably going to scream at someone about lighting during production. Throw in Jake Gyllenhaal and Penélope Cruz, and you’ve got a cast list that reads like an Oscars afterparty guest roll, only with fewer canapés and more resurrection fluid.

The trailer teases murder, possession, wild romance, and an angry mob—though this being Maggie’s version, the mob probably doubles as a fringe theatre collective. Apparently, the budget is ballooning north of $80 million, which feels right; when you’re reviving the dead and staging big dance numbers, you can’t just do it with a fog machine and a pair of stilts.

Thematically, this isn’t your grandmother’s Bride of Frankenstein. This is the roaring ’30s Chicago, where gangsters rubbed shoulders with speakeasies, and now, apparently, with undead feminist icons in flapper dresses. Instead of being a tragic side note, Buckley’s Bride looks set to drive the plot, the movement, and quite possibly the audience into therapy.

Here at SFcrowsnest, we can only applaud Gyllenhaal for not only resurrecting one of horror’s most iconic stories but also giving it the energy of a rebellious student protest and the production values of a gothic fashion show. Will it be terrifying? Almost certainly. Romantic? Possibly. Accidentally hilarious? Inevitably—this is a film that promises both possession and foxtrotting.

So, mark March 2026 in your diaries. The Bride is coming. She’s beautiful, dangerous, and possibly unionising the undead. Bring flowers—or a pitchfork, depending on your persuasion.