Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride Trailer Looks Like The Most Stylish Horror Movie Of 2026 (So Far)

2025 has been a banner year for horror films, as the genre's popularity has not only helped bolster the box office in a big way, but it has also proven its own artistic merits several times over. Any three horror movies released this year demonstrate the genre's versatility, while a couple have managed to become honest to goodness cultural moments. Two of these films — "Sinners" and "Weapons" — happen to have also been Warner Bros. Pictures releases, indicating that the studio was on an absolute roll with horror this year. Now, with the release of the first trailer for "The Bride," it appears that streak was originally set to continue, as the movie was initially planned for release in October of this year. Instead, 2025's loss is 2026's gain, as the film, now set for release next March, looks to be the most stylish horror film of 2026 so far.

As the trailer shows, "The Bride" appears to be a mashup of James Whale's classic "The Bride of Frankenstein" and a "criminal lovers on the run" movie, à la "Bonnie and Clyde," "Badlands," "True Romance," and so on. Acting as our heroic (or perhaps antiheroic) lovers are The Bride (Jesse Buckley) and Frankenstein's Monster (Christian Bale), who are on the run in 1930s Chicago. From what we can see so far, the film is an absolute visual knockout; director Maggie Gyllenhaal and cinematographer Lawrence Sher appear to have cooked up a dazzling melange of styles, combining a gritty, grungy, almost punk rock take on the '30s with some retro elements that recall not just Whale but even aspects of period German Expressionism. Indeed, one can see some Fritz Lang ("Metropolis") and Robert Wiene ("The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari") in everything from the sets to the makeup, and this is just the trailer! Similarly, the preview's final shot is a black and white image of the head of Buckley's Bride in a glass jar, recalling Dr. Pretorius' menagerie from "Bride of Frankenstein." It's a visual that seems to promise some surprises to come (there is apparently a whole music angle which the trailer doesn't even reveal), and I can't wait to see more.

Of course, "The Bride" is hardly the first cinematic interpretation of characters either from or inspired by Mary Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus," nor will it be the last. It's not even the first film about The Bride to drop the "Frankenstein" from its title, as Franc Roddam's "The Bride" beat it to the punch — that film is celebrating it's 40th anniversary this year, which is another shame that Gyllenhaal's "The Bride" isn't dropping until a few months from now. Heck, it's not even the most recent "Frankenstein" movie, as Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein" is due to be released on Netflix on November 7. Yet, despite there being a large number of films already made about both Frankenstein's monster and The Bride, Gyllenhaal seems to be taking the absolute correct approach to her movie, which is to make it as unique and as stylish as possible. This isn't just a smart choice that will allow the film itself to stand out from the rest of the pack, either. Rather, it's Gyllenhaal doing justice by the long history that Shelley's characters have enjoyed in cinema, which is that right from the jump, "Frankenstein" has been synonymous with the visual possibilities in film.

For example, the first ever screen adaptation of Shelley's work — the 1910 Edison Studios' production of J. Searle Dawley's "Frankenstein" — was lauded upon release for its visual acumen. Whale's two films for Universal only upped the ante, and ever since then, a variety of remakes, spin-offs, homages, and the like have made sure to treat Shelley's immortal creation with the creative respect it and she deserves. This can be seen already in the "Bride" trailer, as Gyllenhaal's stylistic choices aren't merely recreating other "Frankenstein" films that've come before; they are instead blazing their own trail without disregarding the history of the material. Another reason why it's too bad that we have to wait until next year for the movie is that Buckley's Bride and Bale's Monster already seem like Halloween costumes begging to happen. Who knows; now that this trailer is out, maybe we might see a few Brides and Franks roaming the streets in a couple weeks. As for the real thing, that'll arrive on March 6, 2026, and it can't come soon enough.