DEAD BRIDE (2022)

Dead Bride (2022)
Directed by: Francesco Picone
Written by: Francesco Picone
Starring: Christoph Hülsen, David White, Douglas Dean, Duné Medros, Jennifer Mischiati, Sean James Sutton

DEAD BRIDE (2022)
Written and Directed by Francesco Picone

Alison returns to her childhood home after the death of her father with husband Richard and their baby Seth in tow. Old memories come back to haunt Alyson when she discovers the house is anything but empty. Witnessing apparitions throughout the home and hearing a voice in the night threatening to take her baby son, she realises she needs help. Seeking out a priest that once helped her father, she pleads for his assistance but could the evil lurking inside the property be too much for even the church to handle?

Blending ghost story with possession horror, DEAD BRIDE focuses on a young family who must fight against the wicked spirit that has plagued Alyson since childhood. Having been witness and victim to its cruelty as a youngster, though she’s unable to recall such events in detail, Alison finds herself coming face-to-face with the evil entity as an adult and it’s angrier than ever.

Having lost her estranged father, Alyson is in an emotional place so, when husband Richard has to go on a business trip, she finds herself vulnerable to the grief within. The evil lying inside the house capitalises on this as it seeks to wreak revenge on the family once again, but this time it’s young Seth who’s the most at risk.

As with many films of this ilk, DEAD BRIDE likes to make the audience jump with its use of scare devices – lights going off, apparitions appearing and then disappearing, objects moving by themselves, and so on. I was not expecting the full frontal nudity shot we get early on in the movie, but I suppose that’s all part and parcel of the package we have in front of us. With noises in the supposedly-empty house putting the viewer on edge, it’s a waiting game to discover the truth of the haunting of the home. The film does enough to fill us in on the backstory in a number of ways, with some impressively freaky scenes, but after all that it’s still hard to feel anything for Alyson, Richard and the baby, as cruel as that sounds. The film feels disjointed and it struggles to flow, making it feel more like a series of scenes following on from each other rather than a fluid story the viewer can get emotionally invested in.

The scene dressing in DEAD BRIDE is fairly on point, with an inspired use of colour giving giallo or Argento vibes as it sets an ominous tone of the scene ahead. This, along with the stunning property in which most of the film is shot, helps to bring together the idea of a once-loving household turned sour. The impressive interior of the house is almost a character in itself as it becomes the prison in which the family are trapped.

When it comes to the scares, whilst there’s nothing that will make you jump out of your seat, there’s quite a lot of effort that has been put in to unsettle the viewer and convince them that the house is not a safe place to be. The makeup of the wicked characters, the titular bride especially, deserves special recognition and will surely delight any horror fan who has a passion for practical and makeup FX. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to plaster over the cracks of the story in what is a generic, run-of-the-mill horror we’ve seen time and time again.

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