Dead Bride is a 2022 Italian supernatural horror film about a young couple that discovers dark secrets when they inherit an old mansion.
Written, directed and edited by Francesco Picone (Age of the Dead aka Anger of the Dead; shorts: Martyn; Io sono morta). Produced by Giancarlo Freggia and Francesco Picone.
The Metrovideo-Officine Garibaldi production stars Jennifer Mischiati (Creators: The Past), Christoph Hülsen (Freaks Out; Twins), Douglas Dean (The Book of Vision), David White, Sean James Sutton (Onassis, Machination), Duné Medros (The Young Messiah), Michael Segal (Out for Vengeance), Francesca Albanese, Federica Bertolani, Lorenzo Carcasci and Alena Mayuk.
Plot:
A young couple, Alyson and Richard, have just moved into a house that was left to Alyson in her biological father’s will. He had given her up for adoption when she was around nine years old, following her mother’s descent into insanity and his subsequent inability to cope with raising a child.
Meanwhile, Alyson and Richard have a new baby but are having a few financial and marital issues. When Richard leaves on a work trip Alyson starts exploring the house and uncovers some very dark secrets hiding in her family’s past…
Director’s statement:
“Dead Bride is a dark and spine-tingling movie,” said the director Francesco Picone. He added, “Dead Bride offers exceptional acting performances, scary scenes and outstanding cinematography. If you enjoy ghost movies, this is a film you won’t want to miss.”
Our review:
The feature debut of writer-director Francesco Picone makes a serviceable – but no more than that – shockfest. It trades heavily in budget-conscious gimmicks (arguably ushered in by the Japanese horror hit The Ring and its increasing Western imitators) of ghastly apparitions who mainly appear as flitting, half-glimpsed, or silhouetted grotesque and skeletal figures.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on one’s proclivities, sex, profanity and nudity are also minimised. Housewife Alyson (Jennifer Mischiati) and businessman Richard (Christoph Hulsen), have mended their marriage after infidelity with a new baby boy and moved into Alyson’s family home. Flashbacks show us why this was not very wise (except in creepy movies, of course). Child Alyson suffered abuse from her crazy seamstress mother and was abandoned by her father to an orphanage. The foreboding house became available to the young couple after the elderly father’s recent suicide.
Weird sights, sounds and a sense of dread predominate. Viewers learn Alyson has stopped taking her psychiatric medication, yet the film spends little time on that red herring, instead revealing an ancestor was murdered as a pregnant new bride and made a deal with arch-demon Asmodeus (alas not shown) to bedevil all family descendants. There are plenty of uneasy moments to satisfy fans of the genre, but also cardboard-thin characters, unedifying dialogue (dubbed into English) and a predictably downbeat “trick” ending. Whereas Italian terror-specialist filmmakers Argento, Soavi, Fulci etc. wound up feverish visionaries in this sort of thing (at risk of some truly stomach-turning material), Picone plays it relatively restrained; a case of the tomb half-empty/half full.
The result, though nothing to be ashamed of, is a moody, half-realised ghost yarn. An okay initial ghoul-around, but I do not see much here to support, say, a Dead Bride 2: Deader Harder.
Charles Cassady Jr, MOVIES & MANIA
Other reviews:
“The most unsettling element here is not so much the umbral lighting or the stupid, entirely predictable jump scares, but the post-production-recorded, dubbed-in dialogue that’s just a hair out of sync with the visuals. Fans of vintage Italian giallo movies might find this charmingly retro but for many it just makes the film feel amateurish and lame.” The Guardian
“It takes us down a disturbing world of haunting within a family home. most importantly it takes us through an unexplained world and the unsure when dealing with the evil that is after a child. Even though this movie is set within one home, it uses every inch to create a different horror experience and keeps us guessing where the film will go next.” 4/4, Movie Reviews 101
“While it was disappointing seeing how firmly this sticks to the ideas of Insidious, I still thought there were scenes here that worked very well, and the makeup effects on the bride always looked great. I think if you head into this with your expectations set low then there is fun to be had here, just don’t expect any surprises or any well-developed and interesting characters.” 6 out of 10, The Rotting Zombie
” …there are three major story elements that I feel were not properly developed or resolved, and I’m in two minds about the way Dead Bride wraps up–I both love and hate the horror of it. It fits well enough with the rest of the film–although it only exists because of a couple completely dropped plot threads–but it’s not quite the ending I excepted or wanted.” Terror Titans
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