Dead Bride (written and directed by Francesco Picone (Age of the Dead, Anger of the Dead) is an indie horror that you can tell deeply wishes it was Insidious. As the film went on, and once I had gotten used to the bizarre dubbed voicework, the similarities to that classic just grew and grew. Despite an unremarkable story however this was still strangely enjoyable.
After her father commits suicide, Alyson (Jennifer Mischiati - Curse of the Blind Dead) inherits his family home. She had been put up for adoption from a young age and so the house brings with it plenty of bittersweet memories from before that happened. She recalls that her mother had suffered an affliction, something which led to her early death and which resulted in her father giving Alyson up for adoption. It isn't long after moving into the home with her baby and husband Richard (Christoph Hülsen) that Alyson begins to experience unsettling phenomenon. Her search leads her to Father Elbert (Sean James Sutton - Almost Dead) and the discovery of the unnatural curse that has been placed on her bloodline.
From the very start there was something that sounded really bizarre to my ears, I quickly realised that the voice work is all dubbed in. This led to not only dialogue that sounded far too loud, but also that the delivery was terrible. Nearly every character sounded like they were enunciating their lines to an incredible degree, this resulted in characters either sounding very condescending or like they were doing voice over work for an advert. Being an Italian film I assume the natural dialogue was in Italian, I really wish it had been kept that way as it created a film whose atmosphere was constantly being eroded by the prim and proper delivery of lines, which didn't appear to take into account the scenes they were being spoken in.
Even without this bad choice there were not a lot of good characters. Alyson was perfectly fine as the protagonist, I also thought the characters of Father Elbert and the paranormal expert (Douglas Dean - Song of the Fly) were not bad. Others though, such as Richard were terrible. He comes across as a gas lighter, and it is established that he has not only had an affair in the past, but that that affair is secretly carrying on in the present. That particular subplot goes absolutely nowhere however, with the strife between him and Alyson seemingly forgotten about by the film's conclusion.
The plot came to resemble Insidious's more and more as it went on. Despite being around eighty minutes long, much of the story felt undeveloped and lacking in details. I will say I thought Alyson's past being presented as flashbacks interspersed over the present day sections was a cool thing. There was a nice element of demonic possession in these past sections, and they were often smoothly integrated. Keeping with copying the homework of Insidious, Alyson in the film's third act ends up going into the realm of the dead, which makes for some nice scenes. A highlight was her discovering a TV in which her mother and father make fun of her, replete with a laughter track. The origins of the trouble plaguing Alyson felt like it needed to be more in depth, it felt like the details were lightly brushed over, rather than being more involving. This made for an antagonist (the titular Dead Bride, played by Francesca Albanese) who felt a bit random. Problems with this character extended to the handful of death scenes in which characters encounter the dead bride before the scene cuts away before their fate is revealed. This led to some moments of confusion where characters just disappear from the movie without other characters appearing to have noticed. I assume side characters who encounter the dead bride were killed, but it is never established. It all leads up to a muddled finish that really didn't make much sense.
For all my criticisms of Dead Bride I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it. It's all over so quickly that there wasn't a chance for boredom to ever set in. While it was disappointing seeing how firmly this sticks to the ideas of Insidious, I still thought there were scenes here that worked very well, and the makeup effects on the bride always looked great. I think if you head into this with your expectations set low then there is fun to be had here, just don't expect any surprises, or any well developed and interesting characters. Dead Bride came to digital VOD on 4th October from Breaking Glass Pictures.
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