I don’t say this lightly, but I think Guillermo del Toro’s FRANKENSTEIN might be up there pretty high among the top Frankensteins? Or at least it hits hard for me. It’s one of the more faithful adaptations of Mary Shelley’s 207-year-old novel Frankenstein: But If You Think About It It’s Almost Like a Modern Prometheus, but it’s reinterpreted enough to feel like pure, personal del Toro.

He uses the wraparound story of a Royal Danish Navy expedition to the North Pole that’s now stuck in the ice. The crew sees an explosion nearby and discovers injured Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac, THE CARD COUNTER). Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen, of the Copenhagen Mikkelsens) takes him on board to shelter him from The Creature (Jacob Elordi, THE MORTUARY COLLECTION), and this strange guest decides to be dramatic and tell his whole damn story from childhood to that very day.

I’m sorry if this sounds too unpleasant, but I see this Victor as a gothic version of our current tech bro overlords. He was born rich (a Baron, even) to a controlling, loveless old racist asshole (Charles Dance, ALIEN 3) who does kooky proto-manosphere shit like pressure his very young pregnant wife (Mia Goth, INFINITY POOL) to eat food dipped in blood because “it’s nutritious.” Victor justifiably hates that motherfucker, even resenting being given a name he sees as an ode to conquest. He’s uncomfortably close to his mother, but she dies while giving birth to a prettier younger brother named William, who his dad prefers, until Dad too dies. Victor grows up refusing to listen to anybody, wanting to be right just so his dead dad is proven wrong, getting a jolt out of “disrupting,” horrifying his professors by making them watch an electrified zombie corpse at the tribunal to expel him from college, then finding a war profiteer to fund his crazy experiments (and ultimately disappointing him), plus never ever finding anyone to love him.

And both brothers must’ve grown up with that mother fixation, since they fight over a woman played by the same actress as their mother. Of course, like all fictionalized versions of this type of dude, Victor has more talent and vision than most of the people running companies today. He invents things, and has published articles, and generally knows what he’s talking about, even if he’s an ass about it. He’s only like the real guys in that he’s an asshole with a huge ego who does dangerous, unethical things and only admits wrongdoing when he’s about to fucking croak.

He also tries hard to be cool, with fashion I interpreted as ‘60s rock star, although I really like Qban8’s comparison to Prince. Look at this! This was the most Prince-like screengrab I got but I want to note that there were doves flying behind him right before this shot.

You know what? If Prince had lived to either star in this or do a soundtrack like he did for BATMAN this would be my favorite movie of all time. I mean I like Isaac in this but I’m sure he would agree.

Victor’s wealthy benefactor is Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz, THE GREEN HORNET), owner of ammunition factories, who becomes interested in Victor’s research when he delivers a message from his brother William (Felix Kammerer, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT). William is to marry Harlander’s niece Lady Elizabeth (Mia Goth, A CURE FOR WELLNESS), so the three of them get together.

When Victor meets Elizabeth he stares at her for a while before saying “Absolutely delighted.” At dinner he’s fascinated because she laughs at him and gives him an anti-war monologue as an allegory about his hubris. When she shoos him away he turns and looks at her again while leaving the room. He doesn’t know how to handle somebody like her. That’s even before he sees that she’s not afraid of dissection, and that she’s into studying insects, both in books and in person. His best bonding experience with her is after he attempts the heinous act of slipping into a confession booth to hear her secrets – the gothic romance version of some ‘80s frat comedy sex crime. She’s not stupid though so she knows it’s him and just talks shit about him as her confession.

Or maybe she is stupid because she’s forgiving enough to then have dinner and dance with him. There’s an old fashioned restrained romantic tension here with Victor clearly trying to steal his brother’s woman and Elizabeth seeming initially intrigued or flattered before repeatedly rejecting him, but the most overt sex act is him running a finger along her bare shoulder once. Nobody ever directly discusses their desires directly, but her uncle notices what’s up and puts his foot down through the medium of pissing (hands-free!) in front of Victor, then telling him to flush it for him as he leaves.

This Victor is a little more dashing and sane-passing than the familiar mad scientist depictions of Dr. Frankenstein, but keeps his shirt on more than the Kenneth Branagh version. (He does have a bath tub scene.) Still, it’s not too hard to tell he’s trouble. When Harlander first visits him he has to jauntily skip over a blood puddle to get in the front door. I like the scene where Victor callously examines convicts lined up at the gallows, checking their teeth, sizing up their potential as parts. “That’s a strong back. This one will do,” he says. Later, when Harlander has advanced notice of a battle that can provide them more corpses, Victor’s only hesitation is about their condition.

Harlander is an interesting character – he’s not only a funder, he provides an important idea for the project, and hires a pretty normal, competent person (William) to do the necessary work setting things up. He’s not uncultured, has some interest in the arts, including his own photography. But he has his own ulterior motives (his Harlander Endgame) that he only reveals just as the storm is coming and Victor is about to give the thing life. Frankenstein has the common sense to say no but also the lack of decency to, when Harlander is accidentally killed in a struggle, put the body on ice and tell everybody he went on a trip.

The electric birth of the monster in James Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN is one of the most famous scenes in cinema history, so it’s pretty hard to compete with. Del Toro does finds ways to put his own spin on the imagery. I love how this looks here:

And I like that when it happens the camera zips through The Creature’s organs like those shots of the engines in THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS.

It’s impressive that Victor creates life, and inevitable that he hadn’t really considered what to do with it. He decides to chain The Creature in the lower level of his tower lab, briefly trying to teach him things, then getting frustrated and giving up. He quickly becomes a whiny, condescending, terrible parent, angry that his creation has trouble learning any words beyond “Victor.” That name his dad gave him.

While deep in his new life style as a deadbeat monster parent, Victor is blindsided by a visit by William and Elizabeth, checking up on their missing uncle. Victor kinda acts like somebody trying to play it cool when his parole officer shows up, interrupting a bender. The inside of the place is all grown over with plants like it’s GREY GARDENS, so Elizabeth has a “what the fuck have I walked into?” look on her face.

When she finds The Creature she’s immediately kind and gentle with him, never scared, only calm, except when asking “Who hurt you?” Victor shows that he created him, that the wounds are healing, shows him off like a product, calling him “it.” I like when he complains that The Creature doesn’t have “the spark of intelligence” and Elizabeth says, “Perhaps not as you understand it.” She continues treating him like a person, so the second word he learns is her name.

Like a real piece of shit Victor is embarrassed by Elizabeth criticizing him, flies into a fury about it, takes it out on The Creature, deriding him for being made of criminals (as if he can’t rise above his origins), and decides to burn the place down with The Creature inside. Only when he hears his name screamed does he feel remorse, try to run back in, and get blown up. Momentarily gaining a conscience causes him to lose a leg. It’s a real mean world we got here, is one of the points being made.

The thing I love most about this movie is its interpretation of The Creature. Inspired primarily by the famous Frankenstein illustrations of comics legend Bernie Wrightson (except with a nose), we first spy him as a silhouette in the snowy “Farthermost North,” face hidden in the shadows of a massive hood, eyes occasionally catching the light, hands sometimes emerging from a tattered coat to make very dramatic gestures as he hunts down Frankenstein. Really he’s a relative of BLADE II’s Nomak, HELLBOY II’s Nuada, maybe even MIMIC’s bug man. He has the roar of a beast, the ability to survive bullet wounds, and the strength to effortlessly lift and slam or toss people (and later wolves) into fires, through wooden structures, into each other. I mean this as a compliment: it’s a little taste of that Dark Universe we were robbed of.

Then of course we jump back to his creation many years earlier, Victor assembling muscle tissue like he’s lovingly putting together a model kit. The Creature is born bald and lanky, lumbering nearly naked, his varied pieces more of a beautiful patchwork than the usual stitched-together mess.

I’ve noticed Elordi twice before in roles that really impressed me. First was as Elvis Presley in PRISCILLA, and I couldn’t believe someone was so good with a different take on The King right after Austin Butler in ELVIS. Then it was in SALTBURN, a movie I know some people really hate for whatever reason, but I feel like his magnetism in it is undeniable. Now here’s an entirely different and much more challenging role, one that’s mostly physical for a while, with the type of attention to strange movement and posture you’d expect from a dancer or mime. In fact, when del Toro was first developing this in 2009 he’d given the role to Doug Jones. Obviously he would’ve known how to do this stuff, but I think it gains an interesting dimension by having a dreamy young guy under the makeup, evolving from confused child to a Creature of some gravity. And, importantly, I just think he looks cool – especially when he’s at his most colorful, in his jigsaw puzzle phase…

… but I was fascinated by his look shifting from dumb guy eyes to jagged, chiseled areas of shadow, to eventually deciding you know what, I bet I could pull off long hair (and he does win that bet).

Without a doubt my favorite section of the movie is when The Creature catches up with his creator in the cabin of the frozen ship, realizes Frankenstein has just told the captain his story, and wants to tell his version. Suddenly The Creature is a more eloquent man the doctor never knew, he’s even narrating, and the feel of the movie changes to a bit of a BAMBI or SNOW WHITE fairy tale feel as he stumbles from the burnt tower into the forest and shares berries with a deer. This is the bit where he secretly helps a blind man (David Bradley, EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING) and little girl (Sofia Galasso), hiding from sight but providing and building for them. He even constructs a heavy duty sheep pen pounding posts into the ground with his bare hands! They attribute his deeds to “The Spirit of the Forest” and leave him offerings of clothes and bread and things. If 2025 has any cinematic images sweeter than The Creature perched on the roof of the cabin, admiring such a gift with a little mouse friend sitting on his shoulder, I can’t think of what they are.

When he finally reveals himself to the blind man it’s a brave coming out, and a rewarding one, because then he learns how to read. It’s a movie that believes profoundly in the power of art to expand consciousness through the sharing of emotions, ideas and expressions of beauty. But this portion also includes the dark side of the fairy tales, including vicious packs of wolves. (The animated animals are much less believable than the rest of the digital effects, but I kinda like their stop-motiony jankiness.)

Obviously The Creature’s happy new life doesn’t last, but his literacy leads to understanding his creation and finding Victor’s address on an envelope. Whoops. The trademark del Toro touches include a reoccurring nightmare about a “dark angel” and a horniness for the monster. I had a bit of trouble with the love story in THE SHAPE OF WATER, but maybe I’m just a prude about monster fucking, because the more chaste and less explained love triangle here did work for me. Elizabeth relates to the butterfly she cages, seems to feel she doesn’t have a choice in marrying William, does choose to reject Victor (okay, that part would be hard to buy if Prince was in the role), but seems happiest in the totally innocent company of The Creature, who she hasn’t really seen at his scariest and still believes is “pure.” When Victor visits her on her wedding day she tells him to get the fuck out; when The Creature does the same she says “It’s you!” and caresses his face. Sorry, Doc, you’ve been replaced again. Deservingly this time.

As always, Goth is incredible in the role, bringing just the right amount of her trademark weirdo energy needed to spice up a beautiful-woman-but-also-she’s-so-much-smarter-than-the-men period piece heroine. Other actresses could’ve matched her being glamorous and proper and wearing amazing dresses but none of them could’ve added as much with their facial expressions. Yes, I believe those are the eyeballs of the woman who could love The Creature.

Ultimately it’s Victor and The Creature’s relationship that has to come to some sort of a conclusion, so there’s a parent-creature conference. On first viewing I wasn’t sure how much I bought Victor apologizing or The Creature forgiving. On second viewing I appreciate that Victor got to give his “son” the closure that he never got with his own shitty father. Maybe a too-little-too-late apology is actually more than we can expect these days. I like the changed ending, still leaving The Creature alive but now a little more open to appreciating life, despite all its shittiness, and giving little suggestion about what the fuck he’ll do now. Personally I assume he’s still out there in the snow, and probly very good at snowboarding, but it’s up to each of us to imagine.

I don’t know if there could be some sort of self-critical angle to this story. Obviously del Toro relates to the monster, but maybe there’s some similarity between a mad scientist’s obsessions and a filmmaker’s, in terms of their effect on the other parts of their lives. In the case of finally making his FRANKENSTEIN, the stubborn obsession paid off. I’m glad Victor didn’t tell him “You have my madness” and convince him to turn the ship around. This is a good one.

P.S. I don’t care where we go, I don’t care what we do. I don’t care pretty baby, just