The Bride! (15)

Quite possibly the maddest major studio release in a while, The Bride! is a monster-filled crime caper that never lets off the gas.

Stick with me on this, because on paper it sounds completely mental. The ghost of Mary Shelley possesses a girl named Ida (both played by Jessie Buckley), a tough yet slinky broad who hangs out at a club owned by wiseguy Mr Lupino (Zlatko Burić). When Shelley’s ghost enters Ida at this place one night, her body convulses with possession, making Ida blurt out random Shelley accented phrases. Lupino has Ida stamped out, but then Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale) shows up at the offices of Dr Euphronious (Annette Bening), asking for a mate to salve his loneliness. So she digs up Ida and zaps her back into life; undead Ida now sports frizzy hair, and inky black marks on her lips.

What follows is Bonnie and Clyde meets The Munsters as Ida and Frank tear up the streets of 1930s Chicago, on the run from mobsters and a pair of detectives (Peter Sarsgaard and Penélope Cruz). It’s beautiful, it’s bonkers, and it must be seen on the big screen.