Sherlock: The Abominable Bride is actually an episode of Sherlock, the TV show, but qualifies for this project due to a technicality - it got a limited release in theaters. It starts Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Rupert Graves, Andrew Scott, Mark Gatiss, Natasha O'Keeffe, and Una Stubbs.
The TV show Sherlock is set in modern times, but here we roll back to the 1890s and meet Sherlock Holmes (Cumberbatch) and his trusty sidekick Watson (Freeman), who are famous celebrity crimestoppers (like Scooby-Doo or Speed Buggy). Watson has begun publishing their exploits, with the result that what the public expects them to be and what they actually are has begun to bleed together. But in any case, Inspector LeStrade (Graves) comes to them with a bizarre case: One Mrs. Ricoletti (O'Keeffe) went nuts, shot up the street from her balcony, then blew the back of her head off. But then, some hours later, she appeared out of a carriage and shot her husband (Gerald Kyd), only to reappear in the morgue later. Months go by and other men turn up shot by the "abominable bride", but it's not until Lady Carmichael (Catherine McCormack) comes to him for help in saving the life of her rather dickish husband (Tim McInnerny, who I absolutely did not recognize at first).
Anyway, the story of the Bride by itself would have been a perfectly interesting mystery, but it turns out that this whole thing is a "mind palace" that modern-day Sherlock has constructed in order to solve the century-old Ricoletti case. It apparently bears some resemblance to a modern-day case, but since I haven't watched Sherlock I was kind of unclear on what was really going on. There's some interesting dallying with the idea that modern-day Sherlock is a fantasy or dream of Victorian Sherlock, and Watson, at one point, realizes that he's in a fantasy when Sherlock is at the mercy of Moriarty (Scott).
All in all, though, I slot this firmly with Fire Walk With Me or Serenity - if you don't know the show, you don't really get the movie. This is more accessible than those two (hell, a movie filmed in Basque with Martian subtitles would be more accessible than Fire Walk With Me), but it still comes up unsatisfying without that context.
My Grade: I
Rewatch Value: Low
Next up: The Caine Mutiny
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