The classic Frankenstein story, like its Monster, has undergone many dissections. In fact, Mary Shelley’s classic has become a deconstructionist’s mother lode. On its surface, the novel is simply about the dangers of Man Playing God. But thanks to literary theory and unbridled postmodern analysis, Frankenstein is now about so much more.
While some attribute themes of race and prejudice to the novel, others interpret the story as a political warning for our times. Immigration, entitlement, disability, and even colonialism are alleged to populate the novel. Queerness in Frankenstein is now a common trope among literary theorists, with social justicians and political activists regularly hailing the story’s inherent queer undertones. While some see Frankenstein as a metaphor for repressed queer identity, others see the Monster as giving voice to body dysmorphia. Which is why more recent interpretations of the novel even portray Frankenstein as a “transsexual icon” and a metaphor for the transgender experience.
Perhaps it’s no wonder then that feminist re-readings of Frankenstein are all too common. Feminism and activism are viewed as prevalent themes in Shelley’s novel, with some even describing the book as a “feminist masterpiece.” Whereas some see the tale as articulating a fear of femaleness, others go so far as to see the story as a declaration of “female resistance” in which “agency can be reclaimed through renarritivization and resistance.” On the outskirts of this interpretive fringe are those who even describe the novel as a proto-ecofeminist text.
Now, from this swamp of literary overreach, another beast has emerged.
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride” released, not coincidentally, on International Women’s Day 2026. This contemporary reimagining of the 1935 classic, “The Bride of Frankenstein,” is described (by womentainment.com, no less) as the Perfect Movie to Watch for International Women’s Day. Why? As Variety puts it, the movie is “the Latest Example of a New Wave of Feminist Horror.”
Yes, “feminist horror” is a thing.
Feminist horror is a sub-genre within the “woke horror” canon. While the horror genre has long been a vehicle for social and moral commentary, the radicalization of social justice causes has subsumed the arts. The horror genre is just one of many pop cultural commodities now being analyzed and co-opted by a new breed of ideological activist. As such, an emerging category of “woke horror” has lumbered into the light. For example, IMDb has compiled 99 “Woke Horror” films. There’s also a list of filmmakers leading the rise of woke horror. Some describe it as “a growing phenomenon,” while others suggest that Woke Horror has Always been a Thing.
“Woke horror” has spawned a number of identitarian-coded sub-genres including Gay Horror, Queer and Homoerotic Horror, LGBTQ+ Horror, Black Horror, and Trans Horror. Apparently, The Bride! unequivocally populates the Feminist Horror category.
Gyllenhaal has made no secret about her film’s message. After watching the original Bride of Frankenstein, she was put off by the bride’s lack of agency. According to PBS:
Gyllenhaal had never seen the Universal monster classic but was inspired to revisit the story after seeing a tattoo of [Elsa] Lanchester’s Bride on a man’s arm. Only then did she watch the 1935 film. Gyllenhaal did not approach this project out of a love for the original or Shelley’s novel. Instead, she saw the iconic Bride as a mute character and urgently wanted to give her a voice … along with a feminist agenda.
In fact, during one interview the director admitted that Trump’s election is what motivated her to make films like The Bride!.
Apparently, Gyllenhaal’s political and ideological motivations are explicit in the film. The Bride! is being called “a feminist reinvention,” a “feminist clarion call,” and “a bold, bloody, feminist Frankenstein freakout.”
However, the film’s messaging has, apparently, not bolstered its box office reception.
Variety mag bemoans,
Director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!,” a feminist reimagining of “The Bride of Frankenstein,” has collapsed in its box office debut with $7.3 million from 3,304 North American theaters. Since the Warner Bros. film cost $90 million to produce — a staggering price tag for the horror genre — and audience scores are downright scary, it’s shaping up to be the year’s first big bomb.
Or to put it another way, ‘The Bride!’ Was Dead on Arrival at the Box Office.
While some are scrambling for explanations, even offering 5 Reasons why the film tanked, many cannot bring themselves to admit “Heavy-Handed Messaging” might be one of those reasons.
For example, Peter Suderman, writing for Reason magazine describes the film as A Feminist Frankenstein That Plays Like a Lost Remnant of Woke Culture. In Woke ‘Bride!’ Feels Like Blast from Cancel Culture Past, Christian Toto, host of The Hollywood in Toto podcast, explains:
Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal goes for broke on her second film, taking Mary Shelley’s classic tome and turning it into a MeToo lecture.
It’s a garishly beautiful lecture, but the film’s core themes are redundant and dull.
Men bad. Women good … and oppressed … and angry.
Every male character is villainized, they are either abusers, gangsters, incompetent policemen. It’s a blunt, lazy approach to writing a character. Elevating female characters doesn’t necessarily require reducing men to caricatures.
…male figures are uniformly terrible, and the feminist messaging becomes heavy handed.
IGN adds, “The Bride! is guilty of overindulging in feminist buzzwords and girl power imagery. But it never lives up to the radical display of female autonomy it promised.” Even the notoriously Left-leaning IndieWire describes the film as a “a wokified… feminist opera” which “feels caught in the drain somewhere between 2017 and 2020, a tale of female oppression curiously behind the times.”
As is par for the course, some are blaming the film’s bad reviews and poor box office on… misogyny. In fact, Gyllanhaal featured Phantasmag’s gushing review — Misogynistic Reactions Can’t Stop Feminist Frankenstein Reinvention The Bride! From Being One of the Boldest Studio Films Ever — on her IG page.
Cultural commentary is a necessary mainstay in storytelling. But when a film or book shifts from storytelling to preaching, criticism is valid.
Writing for MovieWeb, in his article entitled Movies Where a Cultural Agenda Killed the Plot, Neville Naidoo writes,
Cultural agendas in movies seems to be the new normal in the age of wokeness (which may or may not be dying out). While filmmaking as a social commentary device isn’t new, there seems to be excessive amounts of cultural agendas and social activism these days masquerading under the guise of filmmaking.
When used effectively, social commentaries in films can often highlight and bring attention to divisive and serious issues, sometimes sparking much-needed dialogues about them…However, when films feature so much wokeness by forcing cultural agendas down audiences’ throats, they can often kill the plots of such movies, or at least draw attention away from what could’ve been a gripping narrative.
Feminist themes are indeed worth mining in art and literature. However, attempts to force “cultural agendas down audiences’ throats” should be justifiably reproached. Blaming “misogyny” on a film’s reception is a lazy way to deflect legitimate critique in favor of ideological insulation.
In the case of The Bride!, this cinematic cadaver appears to require less preaching, and more lightning.
