In another unqualified review, "Time" wrote that the film had "a vitality that makes their efforts fully the equal of the original picture ... Screenwriters Hurlbut & Balderston and Director James Whale have given it the macabre intensity proper to all good horror pieces, but have substituted a queer kind of mechanistic pathos for the sheer evil that was "Frankenstein"." The "Oakland Tribune" concurred it was "a fantasy produced on a rather magnificent scale, with excellent stagecraft and fine photographic effects". While the "Winnipeg Free Press" thought that the electrical equipment might have been better suited to Buck Rogers, nonetheless the reviewer praised the film as "exciting and sometimes morbidly gruesome", declaring that "All who enjoyed "Frankenstein" will welcome his "Bride" as a worthy successor." "The New York Times" called Karloff "so splendid in the role that all one can say is 'he is the Monster. The "Times" praised the entire principal cast and Whale's direction in concluding that "Bride" is "a first-rate horror film", and presciently suggested that "The Monster should become an institution, like Charlie Chan." "Bride" was nominated for one Academy Award, for Best Sound Recording (Gilbert Kurland).