HorRHIFFic 2026: ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ Review
Stars: Sophie-Jo Beman, Chris Black, Jamie Cowan, Jack Darell, Nicola Ditter, Wayne Dobson, Graeme Muncer, Lauren O’Hare, Julia Quayle, Charlotte Reidie, Jodyanne Richardson, Dan Robins | Written by Harry Boxley, Nicole Holland | Directed by Louisa Warren
Guess who’s back for more low-budget horror fun? Is it me, or is it Champdog Films? You know I can’t get enough of the campy, low-budget films of Louisa Warren and co. After all, I’ve been reviewing the company’s films for almost a decade now – yes, a decade! Warren was first credited as a producer on Darker Shades of Elise, and the FIRST remake of Unhinged that Scott Jeffrey/Chambers produced. Since then, she’s kept up the partnership with Chambers, more recently feeling like she’s taken the reins in the low-budget, direct-to-market genre fare Chambers was known for before he hit it “big” with the Blood and Honey movies.
Bride of Frankenstein (or is it Bride of Frankenstein Awakens? No one can seem to make their minds up) opens with longtime Champdog collaborator Julia Quayle’s Beth performing a ritual that brings her dead lover back from the grave… And we all know what that entails. Let’s just say it’s a BIG mistake!
Written by Harry Boxley, who scripted Warren’s previous “public domain” film Cinderella’s Curse – and whom, it seems, is the current go-to guy to pen these low-budget fright flicks – scripting the likes of Popeye’s Revenge, Mouseboat Massacre, Wickedness and Bikini Shark (I didn’t say they were all GOOD low-budget movies) – from a story by Nicole Holland, transitioning from a Champdog Films actress to writer, this is another titular “cash-in” that is not an adaptation of anything Mary Shelley penned but instead uses the same “resurrection” mythos to tell the story of Frank (Wayne Dobson) who skips town with his girlfriend Santana (Nicola Ditter) following an “incident” that tarnished Frank’s reputation.
Getting married on the way out of town, Santana is tragically killed in a hit-and-run. So what does a grieving Frank do? Well, given he’s already shown he’s got anger issues, he – obviously – turns to the occult in a desperate attempt to bring his deceased bride back to life. Because if horror has taught us anything, it’s that grieving men with anger issues and access to occult literature rarely make sensible life choices! Obviously, as with Shelley’s original novel, the consequences of tampering with life and death begin to unfold.
Oh, and did I forget to mention Frank’s name is LITERALLY Frank N. Stein? On the nose or what?!
The film throws in a teacher, Dr. Pret, who had an affair with Santana, and who Frank blackmails into helping him resurrect her – why? Well, Frank needs access to fresh body parts to replace those damaged in the hit-and-run. And Dr. Pret, he’s their teacher, and Frank and Santana are his MEDICAL students, of course! Frank enlists Dr. Pret’s help in killing folk for body parts too… And being a sleazy teache,r he can apparently just ask students to get in his car for a shag, take them to somewhere remote and kidnap them! Handy that.
If you’re coming here expecting gothic tragedy and existential dread, you’re in the wrong laboratory. This feels far closer to Re-Animator’s sticky-fingered, body-snatching chaos than anything Mary Shelley ever wrote. And that’s not a bad thing – I can certainly get behind a gory, body-snatching take on the oft-told tale.
Much like David Gale in Re-Animator, Wayne Dobson absolutely chews up every scene he’s in as the unhinged Frank, playing him like a violent, walking red flag with a grudge against the world. Meanwhile, Jack Darell’s Dr. Pret sits somewhere between Jeffrey Combs’ gleefully amoral Herbert West and Bruce Abbott’s reluctant Dan Cain – dragged into the madness like the latter, yet still complicit enough to feel a little too comfortable in the chaos.
In terms of gore, Warren keeps things relatively light – but effective. The first “surgery” (technically a murder, but we’re calling it an operation, right?) – involving Sophie-Jo Beman’s Mackenzie, Santana’s sister and yet another of Dr. Pret’s questionable extracurricular activities – is short, sharp and satisfyingly practical. There’s blood, yes, but more importantly, there’s a brutality to the scene that elevates it just above the usual low-budget hack-and-slash. That same nastiness carries over into the death of Santana’s other sister, Victoria. In one of the film’s more uncomfortable moments, Frank sleeps with her — her mother overhearing the whole thing — before killing her mid-coitus after she screams she’ll do anything for him. Yeah, she’ll die!
By this point it’s clear Frank isn’t just collecting spare parts at random. He’s systematically slaughtering the entirety of Santana’s deeply religious family, blaming them for her death and exacting revenge while literally reconstructing a new bride from their limbs and organs. But in another plot twist, Santana’s BROTHER is a detective in training! Will he catch Frank? Maybe. But he certainly can’t save his mother and two sisters!
In a reflection of the film’s cold opener, resurrection comes with some serious side effects – namely a sudden appetite for flesh and blood. Santana’s rebirth comes back to bite Frank, and in Dr. Pret’s case, quite literally. Unfortunately, this is where Bride of Frankenstein starts to wobble. Santana’s rampage plays more camp than carnage, with Nicola Ditter leaning hard into the “hungry” schtick. That said, there are fleeting moments where Santana’s humanity flickers through — moments that hint at a more tragic, more interesting film buried beneath the gore. Had Warren leaned further into that angle, this could have been something genuinely elevated. Instead, the film settles comfortably into pulpy chaos.
As it stands, Bride of Frankenstein is a cut above the usual low-budget public domain cash-in. It toys with ideas of love, religion, persecution and identity – even if it ultimately can’t escape its gleefully camp nature.
*** 3/5
Bride of Frankenstein screened at this year’s Romford Horror Film Festival.
