Dealing with a dubious, indignant demon dilemma does drastic detrimental damage to destroy your defences with wickedness and depravity

Dead Bride is an Italian supernatural horror film dubbed in English all about a married couple, Alyson and Richard, who move into a house inherited by Alyson from her estranged father. She doesn’t feel safe anymore after she discovers a dark secret from her family’s past. What could possess her to feel this way?

Written, directed and edited by Francesco Picone, Dead Bride is an extremely artistic film intricately shot with plenty of pleasing visuals. Camera movements help create suspense by showing the vastness of the cavernous home. Extended tracking shots are used for walks down long hallways, for example. Rotating panoramic shots are used for the exterior establishing shots to show the manor’s sheer size. The house itself becomes a character too by doing this. The lighting for the scary scenes is also a nice addition to the tension building. A combination of CGI and practical effects are advantageously used to enhance the story. I’m not completely against CGI as long as it looks good and if a film isn’t too reliant on it. The story is evenly paced so the exposition parts don’t feel rushed or forced. I also like how a certain entity from ancient folklore is used as the main antagonist. This one isn’t usually broached upon in modern horror. It’s a clever writing choice to further separate this from other films.

Jennifer Mischiati plays Alyson. She does well at carrying the film. If she wasn’t as believable as she is, the film wouldn’t work as well. Christoph Hülsen plays Richard. He’s a flawed character with secrets of his own. Both give great performances to show versatility as far as their range of emotions goes. Both are empathetic characters because they’re written with shortcomings focusing on story arcs about how the couple deals with their situations together. This makes for a smaller, more personal story too.

Francesca Albanese plays the titular Dead Bride. She does a fantastic job in the role entailing a sad story arc that has to do with the family secret without giving too much away. Her performance is another example of how the film wouldn’t work as well if she wasn’t as convincing as she is.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the strong writing, creative directing choices, and superb acting in this hauntingly beautiful supernatural foreign film. Dead Bride is a classic haunted house story told from a fresh perspective because of the innovative approach to the subject matter and creative writing choices. It touches on themes of marriage, infidelity, trust, and parental/child dynamics in an evenly-paced, well-rounded story with a short and sweet runtime. The quality of the practical effects and CGI enhance the impact of the events that transpire. It reminds me of The Exorcist, Insidious, Crimson Peak, and The Woman in Black to a lesser extent. If you’re a fan of those films, I recommend Dead Bride. And remember, in marriage its until death do you part…or is it?

8 out of 10