Although there are hundreds of film adaptations of Mary Shelley’s Gothic horror masterpiece Frankenstein known to exist, few have captured the hearts of audiences as did director James Whale’s 1931 version starring Boris Karloff as the Monster. Now, ninety-three years later, Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro has thrown his artistic hat into the proverbial ring providing audiences with his unique own interpretation of Shelley’s tale of science run amuck.
Del Toro approaches the tale of Victor Frankenstein as he has most of his other films. That is, this is ultimately the story of two flawed, misunderstood beings just trying to survive in a world that does not seem to have the time nor patience for them.
Following the familiar storyline of the brilliant, yet misunderstood scientist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) who is working on the fringes of science trying to understand, and possibly control, the mysteries of life and death, the story is set in motion when Harlander, a new benefactor (Christoph Waltz), approaches Victor offering to finance his experiments provided he allows him to record Frankenstein’s work. Frankenstein agrees and the two set about preparing the patchwork man from various corpses to reanimate.
Then, as the experiments are progressing, Victor is introduced to Harlander’s niece, Elizabeth (Mia Goth) and he immediately becomes infatuated with her. This fuels his experiments and soon, his quest to reanimate life bears fruit. But, when the Creature (Jacob Elordi) is initially brought to life, the experiment seems to have had little success in creating an actual man and instead has only resulted in the husk of one.
The remainder of the film follows a familiar path, but with a distinctly Del Toro touch that gives it not only a modern gothic sensibility but it also touches on a classic horror appeal that carries through the entire film.
Mia Goth in “Frankenstein.” Photo by Ken Woroner/Netflix – © 2025 Netflix, Inc.
As Frankenstein, Isaac does a wonderful job of balancing the character’s arrogance and his desire to cheat death in order to benefit mankind. Likewise, Jacob Elordi’s work as the Creature affords him a humanistic journey of sorts that hasn’t been touched on since Karloff attempted to continue a game of throwing flower petals into a lake by substituting little Maria when the flowers ran out. He is allowed tremendous character growth throughout the film and he handles it admirable. As is often the case in this tale, the Creature becomes the hero and his maker the villain. Then, again, that line is often blurred.
Along with Del Toro’s other work, the film is absolutely beautiful to behold. The cinematography provided by Dan Lausten gives everything in the director’s palette room to breathe and inhabit the screen. Tamara Deverell’s production design too echoes the elegance of classic gothic horror while still embracing the Del Toro aesthetic. All of this is held together by solid editing by Evan Schiff that never allows the two-and-a-half hour running time the film boasts to become a burden on its ferocity.
While it may be argued that there have been more horror specific renditions of this tale, it is possible that there has never been a more beautifully elegant and compelling adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel than the one Guillermo del Toro has concocted with his own Frankenstein.
| Producer: | Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale, Scott Stuber |
| Release Date: | November 7, 2025 on Netflix |
| Running Time: | 149 minutes |
| Starring: | Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen, David Bradley, Christian Convery, Ralph Ineson |
| Writer: | Guillermo del Toro |
| MPAA Rating: | R (for bloody violence and grisly images) |
| Director: | Guillermo del Toro |
| Distributor: | Netflix |
| External Info: | Official Website |
