The Killer Bride is a 2019 Philippine drama television series starring Maja Salvador in the title role, alongside Janella Salvador, Joshua Garcia, Geoff Eigenmann, and a generally pretty star-studded Ensemble Cast. The series aired on ABS-CBN's Primetime Bida evening block and worldwide on The Filipino Channel from August 12, 2019 to January 17, 2020.
Naïve Everygirl Emma Bonaobra (Janella Salvador) moves from bustling Manila to Las Espadas, inexplicably drawn to the sleepy and superstitious town. While working as a mortuary cosmetologist at a funeral home, she learns her purpose in Las Espadas the hard way: she gets violently possessed by the ghost of Camila dela Torre (Maja Salvador). Dubbed the Killer Bride after being framed for the murder of her brother-in-law on her wedding day, Camila vowed to make her tormentors pay as she died in a prison fire.
The plot draws inspiration from José Rizal's 1891 novel El Filibusterismo.
BEWARE OF SPOILERS. The Killer Bride is a heavily serialized show with a complex mystery at its heart.
Tropes found in The Killer Bride:
- The Beautiful Elite: The dela Torres and dela Cuestas are filthy rich Old Money clans. As such, the members of these families are quite aristocratically beautiful. This is punctuated by the fact that the dela Torre sisters Alice and Tati are played by real-life beauty queens Ariella Arida and Lara Quigaman; the household matriarch Lola Guada is also played by a beauty queen, Aurora Sevilla.
- Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: On her wedding day, Camila wakes up with a knife in her hand and her wedding dress stained with Javier's blood. This is a Frame-Up which kicks off the whole plot.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Alice appears to be a nice and supporting family member of the Del Torre family but turns out to be anything but nice, as she is revealed to be The Killer Groom and is behind the Frame-Up of Camila.
- Bittersweet Ending: Camila and Fabio die along with other people whom Alice has killed. Luis is forced to kill his mother Alice to stop her from her killing Vito and Emma. But on the bright side, Camila (who's now a ghost) finally finds peace and stops her revenge after she managed to reunite with her lost daughter Vida for a short time when she discovered that Vida is currently Emma, whom Camila adopted and used for her revenge plan. Luis is able to reunite with his father Juan, who's currently in prison for his crimes. Emma/Vida finally gets a chance to start a relationship with Elias and spend time with her biological father Vito (along with her new stepmother Tessa) and stops her rivalry with Luna to become sisters. And finally, the Dela Torre and Dela Cuestra families are no longer against each other and are now at peace.
- Book Ends: The story starts with Emma falsely claiming to be possessed by the ghost of Camila dela Torre. In the final few episodes, Emma actually is being possessed by Camila.
- The Corrupter: Alice of all people is this to both Luciano and Juan Felipe. Even so, she has nothing to do with Juan Felipe's abuse of her.
- Consistent Clothing Style: Emma wears off-shoulders tops or dresses with different colors and patterns most of the time (except for special occasions) even after Camila reveals herself and her scheme to the public. Camila starts wearing long sleeve dresses or blouses with pearl necklaces for the second half of the show after revealing to the public that she's still alive.
- Demonic Possession: Double Subverted. Camila possesses Emma many years after her apparent death.Or so it seems. It's all an act. However, in the series' last episodes, Emma gets possessed by Camila for real.
- Gratuitous Spanish: Camila names her daughter Vida, meaning "life" in Spanish. Lampshaded when her cellmates think she named her daughter bida, which means "hero" in Tagalog. Once corrected, they find it ostentatious, which is apt, given Camila's fancy background. Albeit strangely, the common Spanish loan word hacienda is avoided all throughout the series, perhaps because of how infamous the term has become in the Philippines, following real-life mestizo clans' high-profile controversies connected to the word hacienda.
- Genre Shift: The show starts off as Gothic Horror, but when it is revealed that Camilla is actually alive and Emma works for her, it becomes a drama-thriller with a pinch of romance and action. Later, when Camila is killed by Alice and becomes a ghost for real. It becomes supernatural horror.
- Hidden Villain: Alice starts out as a Hidden Villain who's behind the Frame-Up of Camila and using her lover Luciano to get rid of Camila. She later becomes a masked Serial Killer once Luciano is killed and a main villain throughout the series after her identity is revealed.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Despite functioning as an obnoxious Hate Sink for most of the story, Luciano is really not wrong when he points out that Guada trying to one-up her social rival at an auction for a little turtle sculpture is stupid. Guada heeds her son's advice and stops nearly wasting money on it.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The final scenes of "Face of Fear" reveal that none of the supernatural stuff going on is actually happening. It was all orchestrated from behind the scenes by Camila, who is very much alive and vengeful. However, in the final weeks, Iking begins to see the ghost of Belinda dela Torre, who was supposedly raped by Armando dela Cuesta. Belinda's ghost is implied to be real. Ultimately confirmed: ghosts are indeed real.
- My God, What Have I Done?: In the Grand Finale, Camila's ghost starts to tearfully regret of how she spends her time mistreating Emma and focusing on vengeance when Vito reveals that Emma is their lost daughter Vida.
- Real After All: After Camila is killed by Alice, it seems like Camila isn't dead and pulling the same trick as before by pretending to be a ghost. But it turns out that Camila is really dead and has become an actual ghost.
- Red Herring: At first we are led to believe that Luna is Camila and Vito's lost daughter Vida when Emma and Camila discover that Luna is adopted. It later revealed that Luna isn't Vida, but rather Emma herself.
- Spree Killer: The killer groom is this, murdering multiple people with ties to Camila in just days.
- Vengeful Ghost: Camila becomes this after she and Vida died in a prison fire. However, it's faked the first time around with Emma's help, but after Alice murders Camila, she truly does become this trope.
