See Christian Bale, Jessie Buckley transform into Frankenstein's monsters in new “The Bride” photos

Maggie Gyllenhaal is directing "The Bride," a new film based on "Bride of Frankenstein."

They're alive! Maggie Gyllenhaal is hard at work directing her next movie The Bride, a new version of Bride of Frankenstein, and on Thursday she shared a first look at her stars.

The photos show Christian Bale in makeup and costume as Frankenstein's monster, with Jessie Buckley modeling her new look as the Bride.

"Meet The Bride & Frank," Gyllenhaal wrote in the caption, along with a black heart emoji.

In addition to Bale and Buckley, the cast of The Bride includes Annette Bening, Penélope Cruz, and Gyllenhaal's husband Peter Sarsgaard.

According to Deadline, the film is set in 1930s Chicago, and the Bride is created by the monster and Dr. Euphronius when they reanimate a murdered young woman. She is beyond what either of them intended, igniting a combustible romance, the attention of the police, and a radical social movement.

These characters originally come from Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, often credited as one of the first science-fiction books. The novel follows scientist Victor Frankenstein, who finds a way to create new life from dead matter, but his creation rebels against him.

The story endures in pop culture mostly through the lens of director James Whale's 1931 film adaptation, which starred Boris Karloff as the monster and debuted the character's now well-known look of pale skin, stitches, and bolts. Bale's costume for the new movie is clearly riffing on that familiar iconography, although the chest tattoo of the word "Hope" seems new.

In 1935 Whale directed a sequel film, Bride of Frankenstein, that expanded upon Shelley's novel by creating a new character. Played by Elsa Lanchester, the Bride was created by Dr. Frankenstein and his mentor Dr. Pretorius as a female companion for the monster, but upon waking she was so horrified by him and/or her own existence that she could only scream. In just a few minutes of screentime, Lanchester created an iconic character who endures to this day as a popular Halloween costume (just ask Keke Palmer).

After years of starring in films like Donnie Darko and The Dark Knight, Gyllenhaal made her directorial debut in 2021 with The Lost Daughter, adapted from the novella of the same name by Elena Ferrante. The Bride is her second film as a director, and is set to film this year.

The Bride isn't the only Frankenstein film in the works. Guillermo Del Toro is also directing a movie based on Shelley's creation, which is set to star Oscar Isaac as Dr. Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as the monster.

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