DEAD BRIDE *

 

Directed by Francesco Picone.
 Starring Jennifer Mischiati, Christoph Hülsen, Seán James Sutton, David White, Douglas Dean, Francesca Albanese.
Horror, Italy, 83 mins, cert 15.

 

Released in the UK on digital platforms via Trinity Creative on 20th March 2023.

 

 

DEAD BRIDE is what happens when a filmmaker has obviously seen every haunted house/supernatural movie from classics such as THE HAUNTING and THE AMITYVILLE HORROR through to more contemporary efforts like INSIDIOUS, THE CONJUIRNG and its various spin-offs, and decided that they could do something similar.

 

And that is exactly what writer/director Francesco Picone has done because DEAD BRIDE is indeed very similar to the majority of those movies; so similar in fact, that it does not deviate from the template set down decades ago and offers up nothing that hasn’t been seen in any number of AMITYVILLE/EXORCIST knock-offs, most of which originally came from Italy which, funnily enough, is where Francesco Picone  and DEAD BRIDE hail from.

 

Which may go some way to explaining what happens after the short pre-title sequence, which visually lets you know what you’re in for, and the loud jump-scare tactics of the title card, itself a nod to 1970s horror that Sam Raimi and James Wan have already paid tribute to several times. What happens is, we are introduced to our two main characters, a husband and wife called Alyson (Jennifer Mischiati) and Richard (Christoph Hülsen) who are moving into Alyson’s former family home with their young baby. Naturally, something bad happened to Alyson in this house and we get the obligatory flashbacks to show us, but what is more horrific than anything Francesco Picone has dreamt up in his script is the dreadful ADR job done by his actors, especially Christoph Hülsen, who sounds like he is being dubbed by a local radio station DJ trying to sound like he really does use his sponsors products and fully endorses them. Well, his is the worst until we are introduced to Father Elbert (Seán James Sutton), the Rod Steiger stand-in whose lines are delivered with all the conviction and emotion of someone being held hostage and telling their family they are being treated well.

 

You may ask “But isn’t shoddy dialogue and bad dubbing part of the fun of Italian genre movies?”, and if we were talking about some fifth-rate ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS sequel you would have a point but, for the most part anyway, DEAD BRIDE is played totally straight and is begging to be taken seriously, that is until we get flashes of the ghost that is haunting Alyson in a way that heavily suggests somebody has seen INSIDIOUS way too many times and took notes.

 

Why is this ghost haunting Alyson? Well, all is dealt with by the flashbacks – which are probably the best bits of the movie as they do add a little colour to what is principally a very dour mise-en-scène during the modern-day scenes, with some playful camera angles and BEETLEJUICE-esque lighting, although they also showcase a voice dubbing job on Alyson’s father that is best described as ‘foreign washing powder advert that has been sold to numerous countries so the voice doesn’t match the mouth’ – you know the ones. Anyway, as well as the flashbacks you get a lot of exposition from Father Elbert which, given the unenergized delivery, is probably not the best way to keep audiences interested, and this is the biggest overall problem with DEAD BRIDE – all of the ‘homaging’ of other movies, bad acting and predictability of it all could be (somewhat) forgiven if it was a fun ride to get to the end (which is also terrible), but tonally the movie is all over the place, jumping from weird, off-kilter flashbacks to straight-laced marital drama – a marriage, it would appear, of two uninteresting people who clearly don’t like each other, portrayed by actors with no chemistry – and peppered with moments of SCOODBY-DOO-esque horror by way of jump scares and a naff exorcism scene that makes the one in REPOSSESSED look terrifying.

 

In the world of the genre movie fan Italian horror cinema is a most joyous thing, and a look back over the decades reveals some proper classics have emerged from the piles of homages, knockoffs and tributes to bigger Hollywood movies – DEAD BRIDE is not one of them.

 

Chris Ward.