It’s been a very good year for Mary Shelley’s immortal Frankenstein, what with Guillermo del Toro’s multi-Oscar nominated film version a critical and popular hit.

Now, thanks to writer-director-producer Maggie Gyllenhaal, everyone’s favorite monster gets his mate with this week’s $80 million fantasy horror “The Bride!”

Gyllenhaal, 48, sets the scenario in 1930s Chicago where “Frank” (Christian Bale, physically resembling Boris Karloff) comes to a clinic run by (perhaps) a mad doctor (Annette Bening), desperate for a mate.

Enter the revived Bride (Jessie Buckley, who’s also Shelley, speaking from the beyond) in an adventure that nods to the futurism of “Metropolis,” the manhunt and murders in “Bonnie and Clyde” alongside Hollywood’s black-and-white tap-dancing musical fantasies (Jake Gyllenhaal riffing Fred Astaire).

The filmmaker’s inspiration came, naturally enough, from Universal Pictures’ 1935 sequel “The Bride of Frankenstein.”

What Gyllenhaal immediately discovered: “The Bride is in it for two minutes — and she doesn’t say one word. It made me,” she admitted in a virtual press conference with Buckley, “very curious about what she might be thinking or feeling.

“Come to think of it, actually all sorts of women in movies made a long time ago, we don’t get a chance to get really inside of ‘What was she thinking?’

“That was the original spark of inspiration. Especially ’cause she finds herself in such an insane situation, having been brought back from the dead without her consent. To be the wife of someone that she’s never met.”

Gyllenhaal cast her husband Peter Sarsgaard as a detective in pursuit of the two monsters on the run, with Penelope Cruz as his partner.

“We start the movie by saying that ‘Frankenstein,’ the book, was written on a dare. The movie is a kind of dare,” the filmmaker said. “The movie is saying, ‘I dare you to turn around and shake hands with your monster.’ ”

Buckley, 36, found playing this monster brought back from the dead irresistible.

“She doesn’t get reinvigorated with a definite idea of herself. She gets reinvigorated with huge questions” Buckley said. “She’s so monstrous in the most wild, brilliant like a laser beam, way.

“And she’s questioning. She’s questioning survival — in order to discover herself. What was essential to both of us was this woman’s mind and body were in deep conversation with the reality that she’s woken up with this man, who she’s definitely curious about.

“She’s not screaming and saying No. She’s like, ‘Where am I? What is love? What is marriage?’ And what have I got to say towards this world that I believe can hold all of me?

“Not just a slice of me, but all of me.”