Brides to Be

I want to give Brides to Be credit for trying. I always got the vibe from the film that everyone was trying really hard. But no matter how hard they tried to mix different elements into a cohesive whole, it just didn’t take.

Brides to Be is a domestic horror film. It takes place the day before lesbian couple Jenna and Robin’s wedding. Jenna, Robin and their friend Nate arrive at their venue to find that it is not set up for the reception. There’s also a creepy caretaker named Bob. Through the night, Jenna and Robin work to make the venue wedding ready and also deal with their feelings of pre-wedding cold feet. However, there is more than just normal wedding trouble. The leads begin suffering from increasingly brutal attacks. These attacks start with mysterious headaches and mental uncertainty but escalate to physical harm and seemingly impossible occurrences.

Brides to Be is clearly shot on a tight budget. It takes place almost entirely in one location and with only four actors. It’s an ambitious project to shoot any film, let alone a horror film with a small budget. Brides to Be simply isn’t capable of showing several moments of horror. A major death scene takes place off-screen while the camera focuses on Jenna and Robin’s reaction to it. The supernatural elements of the film rely on the actors to pretend like there’s something dragging them or stopping them from opening a door. Again, I want to applaud the film for trying. But this limitation comes across loud and clear in the finished project. Many of the horror elements felt less like first choice creative elements and more creative problem solving of what they can show under their limitations.

Even within a their low budget, there are still elements of horror available to Brides to Be that weren’t utilized. This is a slow burn, atmospheric film. So, it requires atmosphere. And it’s not that there was a lack of atmosphere. Instead, the one set up simply isn’t a horror atmosphere. Lighting is a very powerful tool for tone and atmosphere. It was not utilized effectively in Brides to Be. It’s often too well-lit in a way that would suit a romantic drama better. Meanwhile, the dark scenes show a lack of experience in knowing how to light dark scenes with contrast and focus.

Set design comes into it too. Especially for a film like Brides to Be which is about a haunted house. I understand not wanting to lean too far into the classic haunted house look. But this plot involves the house being sentient and hateful. The set required more personality than it had. Simply put, the house and its insides feel too generic to suggest a level of personality or intelligence in the house. It is in no way a memorable or strongly characterized location. Stronger use of ever-shifting light and shadows would make the house feel unknown and uncertain. Having props, furniture or the layout of the house change scene to scene would’ve also help drum up tension and offered the house more feeling of character and sentience.

There’s also little sense of urgency to the film. Even before the horror elements kick in. This is happening a night before a wedding. Yet the three leads are pretty casual about everything. This gives way to characters having little emotional cohesion from one scene to the next. Jenna and Robin go from panicking about how much stuff they have to do to having sex and taking a nap in the following scene. When the horror elements kick in, Robin has either a mental or physical episode involving a boiling hot, inescapable shower. This is followed by scenes where they’re taking wedding pictures and looking lovingly into each other’s eyes. Ladies, get out of there! Because none of the events of either the drama nor horror seem to have much lasting effect on the characters, how can I as an audience member feel any sense of mounting tension?

Brides to Be could’ve worked. Domestic horror is a great way to tell a paired down, low-budget horror story. But this one never comes together. The domestic element isn’t strong and the horror element doesn’t tie well into the story’s framework. To make this work, both the script and film making needed to be stronger. The script needed to focus more heavily on themes and how the horror elements are metaphor. The film making simply needed to find a way to make these elements actually scary. The film we got is not scary. This review is a lot of words but really, that’s all you need to know. Ultimately, Brides to Be a horror movie that isn’t remotely horrifying.

Overall rating: 3.1/10

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