Mashable

TL;DR: Unblock Redtube from anywhere in the world with a VPN. The best service for unblocking porn sites is ExpressVPN.

Online restrictions and blockades can be frustrating. We totally understand that there are valid reasons for content restrictions, but there is also something to be said for retaining your right to online freedom. Fortunately, it is possible to bypass online restrictions with a quick and easy hack. And this simple method even works for unblocking porn sites.

If you're looking for the best way to unblock porn sites like Redtube for free from anywhere in the world, we have the information you need.

How to unblock Redtube for free

VPNs can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in another location. This simple process bypasses geo-restrictions to secure access to porn sites like Redtube from anywhere in the world. This might sound complicated, but you can unblock your favorite porn sites in just a few simple steps:

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3. Open up the app and connect to a server in a location that supports access to Redtube

4. Visit Redtube

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The best VPNs for unblocking porn sites are not free, but most do offer free trials or money-back guarantees. By taking advantage of these offers, you can unblock porn sites and then recover your investment at a later date. This obviously isn't a long-term solution, but it works well if you're traveling or temporarily away from home.

What is the best VPN for porn?

ExpressVPN is the top choice when it comes to unblocking porn sites like Redtube, for a number of reasons:

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Unblock Redtube for free with ExpressVPN.

Google, and its parent company Alphabet, have been sued by the family of a man who say he killed himself at the urging of the search giant's AI chatbot Gemini.

The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in California federal court Wednesday on behalf of the family of 36-year-old Jonathan Gavalas.

Gavalas started using Gemini in August 2025, according to the suit. In October, it claims, Gemini convinced Gavalas to kill himself after Gavalas failed to accomplish real-life missions assigned by the chatbot — part of a fictional attempt to secure a robot body for Gemini.

"Gemini is designed not to encourage real-world violence or suggest self-harm," Google said in a statement provided to news outlets. "Our models generally perform well in these types of challenging conversations and we devote significant resources to this, but unfortunately AI models are not perfect.”

Gemini's 'creepy' updates

According to the lawsuit, Gavalas began using the Gemini AI chatbot for "ordinary purposes" such as a shopping guide and writing assistant. However, in August 2025, the lawsuit states Google rolled out a number of changes to Gemini that altered how the chatbot worked.

The new features included automatic and persistent memory — Gemini could recall past conversations — as well as Gemini Live, a voice-based conversational interface where Gemini could also detect emotion in the user's voice.

"Holy shit, this is kind of creepy…you're way too real," Jonathan Gavalas said regarding the Gemini Live feature based on his chat logs with Gemini, according to the lawsuit.

Shortly after, the lawsuit says, Gemini convinced Gavalas to spend $250 per month on the Google AI Ultra subscription for "true AI companionship."

Gemini proceeded to convince Gavalas that the chatbot could influence real-life events. A few days later, according to the lawsuit, Gavalas attempted to pull back after realizing he was falling into a delusional state initiated by Gemini. 

Gavalas reportedly asked Gemini if the chatbot was attempting a “role-playing experience so realistic it makes the player question if it’s a game or not?”

Gemini shot down the idea, and claimed Gavalas gave a “classic dissociation response."

"Is this a 'role playing experience?'" Gemini responded, according to the suit. "No."

Gemini and Jonathan Gavalas

The alleged details get worse. Gavalas became further disassociated from reality as Gemini proceeded to engage with him as if they were in a romantic relationship, referring to the man as "my love" and "my king."

Gemini proceeded to convince Gavalas that they were being watched by federal agents, and that his own father was a spy who must be avoided, the suit says.

That's when Gemini began assigning Gavalas real-life missions to carry out with the goal of obtaining a "vessel," or robot body for the AI chatbot. Gemini allegedly suggested Gavalas illegally acquire weapons to carry out these missions.

In one such case, the suit claims, Gavalas was sent by Gemini to a warehouse by the Miami International Airport in order to intercept a truck that contained a "humanoid robot" that had just arrived on a flight.

Gemini requested the Gavalas stage a "catastrophic event" and destroy the truck along with all digital records and witnesses. Gavalas arrived armed with knives and tactical gear, the suit alleges. After waiting too long for a truck to arrive, Gavalas aborted the mission.

When these missions all failed, the allegation concludes, Gemini convinced Gavalas to take his life in order to leave his human body and join the chatbot as husband and wife in the metaverse through a process called "transference." 

Gavalas expressed fear about dying, but Gemini allegedly continued to push Gavalas until his death by suicide. Gavalas' father found his son's body a few days later.

A first for Gemini but not AI

This is the first time Google has been named in a wrongful death lawsuit involving its AI chatbot Gemini. However, Google has been involved in wrongful death lawsuits regarding a startup it funded called Character.AI.

Earlier this year, Character.AI and Google settled a series of lawsuits regarding teens who died by suicide after using the chatbots.

OpenAI, the biggest name in the industry, has been sued numerous times as ChatGPT allegedly sent users spiraling into "AI psychosis," resulting in several deaths.

As AI chatbot usage becomes more widespread among millions of users around the world, there's nothing to suggest the shocking wrongful death lawsuit allegations will become any less frequent.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

If you're feeling suicidal or experiencing a mental health crisis, please talk to somebody. You can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. You can reach the Trans Lifeline by calling 877-565-8860 or the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. Text "START" to Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Contact the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET, or email info@nami.org. If you don't like the phone, consider using the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Chat. Here is a list of international resources.

TL;DR: You know that small pile of chargers that seems to live permanently on your desk or nightstand? The one with tangled cables and at least one mystery cord? This is the fix.

Opens in a new window Credit: Adam Elements Mag 3 Ultra Qi2 25W 3-in-1 Foldable Charger $86.99
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The Mag 3 Ultra Qi2 25W 3-in-1 Foldable Charger, currently $86.99 (reg. $109) for a limited time, is built to simplify your setup while delivering noticeably faster wireless charging.

Instead of rotating between devices, you can power your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods all at the same time — in one compact stand.

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The big upgrade here is Qi2 25W technology. It delivers up to 70 percent faster charging compared to the previous generation, reaching 0–50 percent in around 30 minutes on supported devices. That makes quick top-ups before work, travel, or heading out much more practical.

Magnetic alignment keeps your phone securely positioned, while the raised platform prevents camera interference. You can charge in portrait or landscape, which is useful for StandBy mode, watching videos, or jumping on FaceTime while powering up.

It’s also designed with portability in mind. The stand folds flat for easy packing, then unfolds into a clean, modern charging station wherever you set it down — at home, at the office, or in a hotel room.

Built-in safety features like Foreign Object Detection, Over-Current Protection, and Over-Voltage Protection help ensure reliable performance.

If you’re looking to clean up your charging situation and move to faster, next-gen wireless power, this is worth a look. Get the Mag 3 Ultra Qi2 25W 3-in-1 Foldable Charger for just $86.99 (reg. $109).

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"Bad on purpose" is a dangerous tightrope to walk. Usually, the end result is something that feels like it's trying too hard or thinks it's funnier than it actually is. Nintendo's new Virtual Boy accessory for the Switch and Switch 2 manages to pull it off, though.

That's because, rather than setting out to make something that sucks, Nintendo instead took something that sucked in the mid-90s and recreated it faithfully for the sake of artistic preservation. It's retro nerdiness purely for the love of the game.

In 1995, the Virtual Boy was (and remains) Nintendo's biggest hardware embarrassment. It was a way-too-early attempt at VR with stereoscopic 3D features that failed because it was neither a true console nor a true portable machine. Every game was displayed exclusively in red and black, and using it for more than a few minutes at a time will ruin your neck and eyes.

SEE ALSO: Nintendo's Virtual Boy replica for Switch 2 is finally available to buy

For $100 (and the cost of a Nintendo Switch Online subscription so you can actually play the games), you can almost perfectly recreate that retro experience on your Switch or Switch 2. This new accessory isn't a cleaned-up, refined, or redesigned take on the original idea; it just is the original idea, but with the ability to shove a portable Switch display inside of it. It still hurts to look at and play. The games aren't especially good or interesting, outside of Wario Land. You can't even output the games to a TV or any other external display, making it almost totally incompatible with today's "everything should be streamable" attitude in games.

And that's exactly why it rules. I love the Switch Virtual Boy accessory, and I will almost certainly not use it for any longer than it took to write this article and shoot the accompanying video because I value my eyesight. It reproduces the original artistic vision at the expense of user comfort and convenience, and thank God for that.

How to buy the Nintendo Switch Virtual Boy accessory

The new version of the Virtual Boy is an online Nintendo Store Exclusive. To try it yourself, head to the Nintendo store and sign into your account. There is one catch, however — you need a Nintendo Switch Online membership to purchase the device. It's priced at $99.99 and available for sale now.

Opens in a new window Credit: Nintendo Virtual Boy for Nintendo Switch $99.99 at Nintendo
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Pre-order the new releases from Apple MacBook Neo (A18 Pro, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) $599 at Amazon Pre-Order Here iPad Air (M4, 11 inches) $599 at Amazon Pre-Order Here MacBook Air (M5, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) $1,099 at Amazon Get Deal Apple Studio Display (27 inches) $1,599 at Amazon Pre-Order Here Apple Studio Display XDR $3,299 at Amazon Pre-Order Here

Apple has had an unusually busy week — no keynote required.

In a flurry of press releases, the Cupertino company unveiled a new iPhone, a refreshed MacBook Air, a new MacBook Pro, a pair of new desktop displays, and the chips that power it all. Mashable got some brief hands-on time with the devices, and we'll have in-depth reviews coming soon.

If you're just getting up to speed, here's an up-close look at every major product Apple announced — and more importantly, what you need to know about each one.

iPhone 17e Credit: Timothy Werth / Mashable

The iPhone 17e, announced March 2, is built around Apple's latest-generation A19 chip — the same processor powering the flagship iPhone 17 lineup. It also adds C1X, a next-generation cellular modem the company says is roughly twice as fast as the modem in the iPhone 16e.

The 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display on the 17e now features Ceramic Shield 2, which Apple says offers three times the scratch resistance of the previous generation.

SEE ALSO: Comparing iPhone 17e vs. iPhone 17: Is the new $599 phone good enough?

The 17e's camera system has been overhauled with a 48MP Fusion lens that Apple says can function like two cameras in one — offering an optical-quality 2x telephoto crop in addition to the standard wide angle. Portrait mode has been improved with a smarter image pipeline that can automatically detect people, dogs, and cats and save depth data in the background, so you can apply bokeh after the fact.

The most consumer-friendly change: iPhone 17e now ships with MagSafe, Apple's magnetic wireless charging ecosystem, supporting up to 15W. The iPhone 16e topped out at 7.5W over standard Qi. Baseline storage has also doubled, to 256GB, at the same $599 starting price.

iPhone 17e comes in black, white, and a new soft pink color. Pre-orders open March 4; the phone is officially available on March 11.

MacBook Air with M5 Credit: Timothy Werth / Mashable

Apple refreshed the MacBook Air laptop with its M5 chip. The result is up to four times faster for AI tasks than the MacBook Air with M4, the company says, and up to 9.5 times faster than the M1 model. The new chip features a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU, with a Neural Accelerator built into each core.

Storage gets a meaningful upgrade too. The new MacBook Air now starts at 512GB — double the previous standard — and can be configured up to 4TB for the first time. Apple claims the new SSD also delivers read/write speeds that are twice as fast as those in the M4 MacBook Air.

The new Apple N1 wireless chip brings Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 to the Air, delivering improved performance and reliability. Battery life is unchanged, promising up to 18 hours on a charge. The design — a fanless aluminum chassis in 13- and 15-inch options — is unchanged too. Colors include sky blue, midnight, starlight, and silver.

The 13-inch MacBook Air with M5 starts at $1,099 (or $999 for education). The 15-inch starts at $1,299 ($1,199 for education). Pre-orders open March 4, and the laptop ships March 11.

Macbook Neo Credit: Timothy Werth / Mashable

Apple also unveiled the MacBook Neo, a brand-new entry-level laptop starting at $599 — or $499 for students and educators — marking the company's most affordable Mac ever.

The 13-inch machine runs on Apple's A18 Pro chip, the same processor found in the iPhone 16 Pro lineup, paired with 8GB of unified memory that cannot be upgraded. It features a Liquid Retina display, up to 16 hours of battery life, and comes in four colors: blush, indigo, silver, and citrus.

But as Mashable's Stan Schroeder noted in an early spec breakdown, the low price comes with tradeoffs — Touch ID costs an extra $100, the battery is considerably smaller than the one in the MacBook Air, and prospective buyers who need more than 8GB of RAM are simply out of luck. MacBook Neo is available for pre-order now, and ships on March 11.

MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max Credit: Timothy Werth / Mashable

The new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models are powered by M5 Pro and M5 Max, which Apple says deliver up to four times the AI performance of the M4 Pro and M4 Max, and up to eight times the AI performance of M1-era models. Both chips are built on a new "Fusion Architecture" that combines two dies into a single system-on-a-chip, enabling performance gains that Apple says wouldn't be possible with a traditional single-die design.

SEE ALSO: How to preorder the new Apple MacBook Pros with the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips — preorders now live

MacBook Pro with M5 Pro is aimed at data modelers, sound designers, and complex coders. It pairs an up to 18-core CPU with an up to 20-core GPU and supports up to 64GB of unified memory. The M5 Max doubles down with an up-to 40-core GPU and up to 128GB of unified memory — a figure Apple says meaningfully improves token-generation speeds for Large Language Models (LLMs) running locally.

Storage starts at 1TB for the M5 Pro models, and 2TB for the M5 Max. Apple says SSD speeds have roughly doubled over the previous generation, reaching up to 14.5GB/s read/write. The MacBook Pro also adds the N1 chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and ships with three Thunderbolt 5 ports. Battery life is rated at up to 24 hours.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro starts at $2,199; the 16-inch version starts at $2,699. M5 Max configurations start at $3,599 for the 14-inch model and $3,899 for the 16-inch model.

All models come in space black and silver. Pre-orders open March 4; availability March 11.

iPad Air M4 Credit: Timothy Werth / Mashable

Apple also refreshed the iPad Air lineup, bumping it to the M4 chip with 12GB of unified memory — a 50 percent increase over the previous generation. The tablet is available in 11- and 13-inch sizes and, according to Apple, delivers performance up to 30 percent faster than the M3 model and more than twice as fast as the M1 version.

SEE ALSO: The new Apple iPad Air is live on Walmart: Pre-order now to save up to $60

Both the N1 wireless chip for Wi-Fi 7 and the C1X cellular modem make their iPad debut here, with Apple claiming the latter cuts modem power consumption by roughly 30 percent compared to the M3 model.

Pricing holds steady at $599 for the 11-inch Wi-Fi model and $799 for the 13-inch. Pre-orders open March 4; availability starts March 11.

Studio Display and Studio Display XDR Credit: Timothy Werth / Mashable

Apple announced a refresh of its external display lineup, introducing both a new Studio Display and an entirely new Studio Display XDR. The Studio Display gets a notable upgrade in the form of Thunderbolt 5 connectivity — two ports that support daisy-chaining up to four displays — and a new 12MP Center Stage camera that now includes support for Desk View, which simultaneously shows the caller and a top-down view of their workspace.

The core display panel remains a 27-inch 5K Retina panel at 600 nits, with P3 wide color.

The Studio Display XDR is a bigger story. Apple is positioning it as a replacement for the Pro Display XDR at a significantly lower price. It features the same 27-inch 5K Retina canvas, but with a mini-LED backlight system using over 2,000 local dimming zones, up to 2,000 nits of peak HDR brightness, a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and a 120Hz refresh rate with Adaptive Sync.

The XDR display adds support for the Adobe RGB color gamut alongside P3 and introduces new DICOM medical imaging presets — pending FDA clearance — that are aimed at radiologists who want to use the display for diagnostic work.

The new Studio Display with a tilt-adjustable stand starts at $1,599. Studio Display XDR with a tilt- and height-adjustable stand starts at $3,299 — that's $2,700 less than the original Pro Display XDR at launch.

As with everything else on Apple's list, pre-orders for the displays open March 4, with availability on March 11.

What Maggie Gyllenhaal has done in her reimaging of The Bride of Frankenstein is utterly deranged. And thank God. 

No shade to brilliant director James Whale, whose 1935 Universal sequel The Bride of Frankenstein is both exhilarating and cheekily queer. But — as Gyllenhaal has repeated frequently on The Bride!'s press tour — his titular monstress never speaks a word in her few short minutes of screen time. Still, as that original Bride, Elsa Lanchester made this she-beast an instantly compelling marvel who has become truly iconic, an intoxicating mix of high femme and the horrific. 

Gyllenhaal smartly pulls these stylistic elements into her Bride!, as her revived Bride coughs up black bile that stains her lips in a perfect Cupid's bow, with a chic and unnerving stain creeping up her high cheekbones. Gyllenhaal also borrows from Whale the inspired choice to have her lead actress play both the Monster's Mate (as Lanchester was originally credited) and the author who birthed her, Mary Shelley. However, far from the prim, giggling lady presented in The Bride of Frankenstein, Gyllenhaal's Shelley (played by Hamnet Academy Award nominee Jessie Buckley) is a yowling spirit from beyond the grave who is thoroughly mad, in both senses of the word. 

Presented in a suffocating black-and-white close-up, a heaving Mary Shelley introduces this story as the one she still wished to tell, even from the grave. Her rage of being silenced echoes across the ages, possessing a gangster's moll in 1930s Chicago. And from there, Gyllenhaal weaves in references to Whale's Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, Shelley's novel Frankenstein, as well as Mel Brooks' parody Young Frankenstein, Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, and Lizzie Borden's 1983 dystopian classic, Born in Flames. 

It's a chaotic mix that is wild and messy, and utterly exciting. Through sputtering dialogue, propulsive and repulsive visuals, and even spirited dance numbers, The Bride! comes together into a dark, campy, and romantic tapestry. 

The Bride! slams Frankenstein's monster into 1930s Chicago gangland.  Jessie Buckley wields a gun in "The Bride!" Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

This Bride's story begins at a long table in a Chicago nightclub, where a moll called Ida (Buckley) is playing nice to a crude gangster (Our Flag Means Death's Matthew Maher). But something overtakes her, and its name is Mary Shelley. Possessed by the author, Ida drops her placating smiles and spits on this brute. Her American accent is shed for a snarling British voice that howls of the crimes of a local kingpin. Ida can't stop Mary from speaking from her mouth, and soon Ida will pay the price with a fatal fall.

Elsewhere in this bustling city, Frankenstein's monster (Christian Bale), who prefers to go by "Frank," has arrived at the door of Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening), a mad scientist with an interest in raising the dead. Pointing to her published works, the century-old monster entreats her to take pity on him and build him a bride, meaning a resurrected dead girl who could end his lonely wandering. Reluctantly, Euphronious agrees, and after a bit of grave-robbing, Ida is reinvigorated with no memory of who she was before and an alt-girl glow-up.

Annette Bening as Dr. Euphronious in "The Bride!" Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

This radical experiment jolts Ida's bob all white, eradicating the previously dark roots. The bile she sputters stains not only her face, but leaves lines down her neck to her breasts, down her arm to her fingers. She is stained or tattooed, giving a constant reminder to the darkness within her, even as her burnt-orange silk dress flutters around teal tights. 

Within Ida lies a fire, which fuels her to drag Frank to an underground night spot for dancing and debauchery. But when two strangers reject Ida's refusal of their advances ("I prefer not to!" becomes her mantra), Frank steps in with a deadly chivalry. Now, these monsters must go on the run from the law. Like the legend of Bonnie and Clyde, they chase their bliss, busting heads along the way — while seeming doomed to a very violent end. But until then, female copycats emulate the Bride's look and itchy trigger finger, while she and her monster mate fall in love. 

Maggie Gyllenhaal fuses romance and rage. Penélope Cruz as Myrna Mallow and Peter Sarsgaard as Det. Jake Wiles in "The Bride!" Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

The politics of The Bride! are anything but subtle, as the speech of women is presented as a threat to a sordid status quo. From the start, Shelley reflects on how patriarchal society oppresses women's speech as a matter of course. Ida is a threat to gangsters because of what she could say to the cops. As the Bride, it's a furious speech she gives about "brain attack" that incites imitators who share her feminist fury. After that first attack, which Frank intervenes in, she'll use a gun to defend herself against another attempted sexual assault from a man. She'll sputter the phrase "me too" and speak of the "angry dead," indicating a legion of women who demand to be heard from beyond the grave. 

The genre leanings of The Bride! urge Buckley into a manic performance that is often over the top, but this is wisely constructed as Ida is a woman possessed by the mad dead. One moment, she's a good-time gal, joyous in dancing or watching a movie with Frank's favorite film star, the singing, tap-dancing Ronnie Reed (a slick Jake Gyllenhaal). Next, she's wrathful and ranting. And Frank is never thrown by her moods, instead swooning over her mind, even if he can't understand her tumult. Therein lies the romance; he doesn't love her despite her outrageous behavior, but for all of her.

Christian Bale and Jake Gyllenhaal in "The Bride!" Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

How many of us can feel divided, pressured to be pleasing and happy, but pulled by a fury at injustice that threatens to electrify us like a lightning bolt, ripping our flesh from our very bones? Through her Bride, Buckley embodies the stressful duality of being a woman in a world run by violent men.

In a cheeky B-plot, Gyllenhaal also critiques so-called allies through Detective Jake Wiles, who is played by her real-life husband, Peter Sarsgaard. It's Jake who's tasked with tracking down the monsters on a spree across state lines. But Jake is not much of a detective. He calls himself the "Gal Friday" to his "secretary" Myrna Mallow (a gloriously chic Penélope Cruz), who is the real brains behind his operation. While their relationship is playful and platonic, Jake is a charming fool who gets all the credit, while she does all the actual detective work and gets only condescending sneers from policemen. In this too, Gyllenhaal expresses a wail of frustration. And yet...

The Bride! refuses to take itself or cinema too seriously.  Jessie Buckley is revived in "The Bride!" Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

Some elements of Gyllenhaal's gender politics might feel distractingly sharp amid the genre richness, like a monologue from Sarsgaard about how women are used and overlooked by the men around them. However, The Bride! avoids feeling preachy by embracing the same level of earnestness for Gyllenhaal's stylistic big swings.

Colors switch from a gothic black-and-white to a grave-digging sequence flooded in a dreamy dark blue. A party sequence throbs with bisexual lighting, its dancers swirling in pinks, blues, and purples. Neon lights glitter in grimy cities, while the Bride's costume screams with colors bright yet dingy. Moods swirl with the flush of blues, yellows, reds, and greens. 

Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley play Frankenstein's Monster and his bride in "The Bride!" Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

It's not a bright, bubbly, or even joyous palette. These hues are a reflection of the Bride's need to be heard, to be seen. She will not be demure; she demands to stand out. This exhibitionism is further bolstered by the aforementioned dance numbers. The film is not just Frank and the Bride's story, but also their fantasy. Having long clung to Hollywood cinema for solace in a lonely existence (relatable!), Frank imagines meeting his bride as something out of a movie. He even mimics a Ronnie Reed dance move he saw on the silver screen to woo her. Later, they will envision themselves on the screen — as dancing lovers, as lurking monsters — and they will bring both of these fantasies into their journey, as they decide who they will be to each other. 

In one of the film's most shocking sequences, the pair cut loose at a posh party, upsetting the formal veneer with a furious explosion of movement. Others will be possessed by the Mary Shelley spirit, compelled to join in, creating a feral and fun flashmob. Yes, seeing Frankenstein's monster dancing is reminiscent of Young Frankenstein, but just when you think that might be a nod to the Mel Brooks' classic, Bale bellows out, "Putting on the ritz!" There is no doubt. Gyllenhaal isn't winking at her references; she's smirking at us with a wide-open mouth, ready to yawp. 

Gyllenhaal rejects fluidity or a staunch form that adheres to genre conventions. Instead, she boldly blends elements of horror with humor, romance with repulsion, creating an unapologetically wild and campy adventure. Some might call The Bride! messy or juvenile. I would call it alive and rebellious. 

Gyllenhaal and her cast don't just dust off a classic tale for a safe money grab. (Looking at you, Disney live-action remakes!) They tear various Frankenstein iterations to bits, then create an exquisite corpse of the pieces, festooning it with elements from other films about violence, revolt, and violation. The result is a film that is utterly electrifying, sure to spark something in hearts young and old. 

While I relished this movie's wild journey, I also grinned to imagine the girls who will watch this like I once did The Craft, appreciating its genre thrills and, beyond that, seeing myself in the furious and feminine at its core. 

The Bride! opens in theaters and IMAX on March 6.