Mary Shelley was only eighteen when she wrote Frankenstein, which might explain why the story still feels so unsettlingly alive. It is a tale born from wild imagination, emotional intensity, and a frightening clarity about adulthood – parenthood, responsibility, abandonment, and the damage we cause when ego outruns empathy. Two centuries later, Guillermo del Toro returns to this myth not to modernize it, but to personalize it. And that, it turns out, makes all the difference.
Del Toro’s Frankenstein, now streaming on Netflix, is a grand, melancholic, deeply emotional gothic fairy tale – one that feels timeless, painfully relevant and very authentic to the style of the Mexican filmmaker. If this is a monster movie, then the monster is ambition without accountability.
The film opens with spectacle. The vast cold land of the Arctic. A gigantic ship trapped in ice. Sailors dragging a half-dead man from the snow. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), bleeding and delirious, is rescued just as another figure emerges from the snow blanket surrounding everything – his creation, on a revenge-fueled pursuit, killing indiscriminately to reach his maker. It’s a striking, action-heavy opening, one that reportedly satisfies Netflix’s appetite for immediate dramatic openings (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have recently spoken about this new requirement from the streaming giant), but it also works beautifully as a framing device. From here, Victor begins to tell his story – classic.
We are pulled back into his childhood, his traumatic experiences with his father, his brilliance, and his hunger for greatness. In particular, his hunger for cheating death. Del Toro structures the film in clear emotional chapters: first Victor’s tale, then the Creature’s. This dual perspective is crucial. Where some adaptations treat the monster as an afterthought, del Toro centers him as the film’s emotional, human core.
Isaac’s Victor Frankenstein is ferocious in the early scenes: grand, theatrical, consumed by self-belief. His performance leans deliberately expressionistic, almost operatic, and it works. Victor is not meant to feel grounded, he is intoxicated by his own intellect. He is running up and down in his castle of wild experiments like a mad king. Watching Isaac gradually drain that energy – sliding into fear, remorse, and paranoia – is one of the film’s quiet triumphs.
Jacob Elordi, as the Creature, delivers something far more fragile. After reportedly spending up to ten hours a day in makeup, Elordi emerges not as a grotesque spectacle, but as a strangely beautiful, hypersensitive being. This is a conscious and powerful choice. Del Toro’s monster is not ugly in the traditional sense: he is vulnerable, confused, and painfully human. The horror lies not in his appearance, but in how the world reacts to and treats him.
One of the film’s most tender performances comes from David Bradley as the blind man who befriends the Creature, his only real connection. Their scenes together where the old man teaches the creature to read or offers him bread – are simple yet very powerful. Bradley’s warmth anchors the Creature’s humanity, reminding us that kindness, even briefly offered, can change everything.
The supporting cast is packed with presence: Christoph Waltz, Mia Goth, Charles Dance, Felix Kammerer, and David Bradley each bring depth and weight to del Toro’s vividly imagined world. No one feels wasted. Every character carries a belief, a fear, a distinctly human perspective – like the distant father who genuinely thinks he’s doing right by his son, or the spirited young woman whose curiosity for the world – and, oddly, for insects – makes her feel both otherworldly and utterly real.
Visually, Frankenstein is exquisite. Cinematographer Dan Laustsen – del Toro’s longtime collaborator (The Shape of Water, Crimson Peak, Nightmare Alley) – creates a world steeped in shadow and color. Blues, deep reds, candlelit golds. The film feels sculpted rather than shot. Production, art and costume design are equally meticulous: the frozen ship, Victor’s laboratory, the academic halls, ballrooms, restaurants and every outfit these characters wear – all feel both historically grounded and fairy-tale-like. This is gothic cinema with texture you can almost touch. I mean, what else could you expect from the master filmmaker of the genre?
Alexandre Desplat’s score leans into myth, playfulness and melancholy, occasionally evoking the sweep of classic John Williams without ever tipping into pastiche. It gives the film a dreamlike rhythm – something ancient, tragic, and lyrical.
Thematically, del Toro makes his stance clear from the start: the real monster is Victor Frankenstein – at least until he’s finally forced to see beyond his own perspective. This is a story of parenthood, unchecked ego, and the quiet violence of abandonment. Victor cannot imagine another point of view, cannot pause to listen, cannot take responsibility. His tragedy isn’t that he brings life into the world: it’s that he refuses to care for it.
Del Toro pushes the story toward forgiveness rather than punishment, especially in its final act. The ending diverges significantly from Shelley’s original, trading absolute despair for a fragile sense of peace. The final Lord Byron quote: “And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on” lands like a soft exhale after a long ache. It’s a hyper sensitive, moving choice.
This Frankenstein is unmistakably del Toro’s. Like Pan’s Labyrinth or The Shape of Water, it talks about outsiders, with empathy, with the cost of cruelty. It believes monsters are made, not born. And it insists that forgiveness – while never easy – is necessary if we want to survive what we’ve done to one another.
Does the film sometimes try to do too much? Absolutely. At nearly two and a half hours, it occasionally stretches its ideas thin, lingering where a bit more momentum might have helped. It weaves together gothic horror, romance, psychological drama, and myth – and not every thread lands perfectly. I personally expected a touch more “body horror,” but it’s clear del Toro’s intention leans toward something more accessible, even family-friendly. Still, ambition has always been his signature, and here, it largely pays off.
Comparing this adaptation to others feels beside the point. Frankenstein has survived for over 200 years because it keeps asking the same uncomfortable questions: What do we owe those we bring into the world? Who gets to define monstrosity? And what happens when we refuse to look at ourselves honestly?
Frankenstein is now streaming on Netflix. Watch it with your kids, your partner, or just your inner teenager – but don’t let the credits roll in silence. Talk about it. Ask questions. Debate. That feels exactly like the filmmakers’ point: it’s a story meant to spark a very human conversation. And please, if it plays at your local theatre as part of a festival or something, go and see it. Because it can be best enjoyed on the big screen!
~ by Dora Endre ~
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