I Finally Watched Frankenstein (2025)

When I was a kid, I watched a version of Frankenstein on tv with my grandfather and I remember this scene where the Monster tore out the heart of Elizabeth. Blood oozed out and over everything painting Victor in red. He rushed her limp, cold body up the stairs and some other character said, “it won’t bring her back.” To which Victor said, “I have to try.” I remember him sewing her head onto a corpse and raising her body to be reanimated by lightning. When she came too she was grotesque. She had a large scar and stitches down her head. Her hair was falling out. Her hands were sewn onto the new body and appeared crooked. The worst thing? She couldn’t remember her name. I ran out of the room after this sequence. And for the longest time I never knew what happened next.

I had terrible nightmares for years after this. I couldn’t sleep on my back because it felt like I was being dissected. The windows in my room no longer provided comfort with light from outside, but were now a doorway for the Monster to get me. I still get a little queasy looking at pictures of surgery.

Reading the book in senior year English class really did help me. The monster isn’t some violent uncaring thing; he’s a guy, as complicated as one can be. He’s intelligent, expressive. He saves a girl from drowning. He begs Victor to acknowledge him. Victor is disgusted by the creature’s hideous appearance (you created him bro???). Full disclosure, the Monster still does revenge murder Victor’s family in the book, but it’s a little less jarring in context. The Monster and Victor are both tragic opposites forced to suffer each other. I got over my fear of the story and kinda appreciate what it was about.

The original Universal Pictures movie from 1931 did a lot of damage to our ideas of Frankenstein. The Monster is barely intelligent, scared of fire, and is evil from inception. Victor creates the Monster with dead body parts (in the book it’s never explained how he made the Monster). In the sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein, Victor makes… well a bride. In the book he destroys the second creature before finishing it. Often, Elizabeth tries to stop Victor from going too far; in the novel she doesn’t even know about the Monster until it’s too late. The novel is a thoughtful critique on the nature of good and evil and also an exploration of the state of science in the 1800s. The 1931 movie is one of the first monster movies.

It turns out the version of Frankenstein I watched as a kid was Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994). This version of Frankenstein is apparently (I have not rewatched this movie) inaccurate, over acted, and above all infamously bad. I feel slightly vindicated knowing other people dislike this movie. (Totally off topic, but Robert De Niro plays Frankenstein’s Monster, that’s not important but I need you to have this image in your head).

When Guillermo del Toro announced he was working on an adaptation of Frankenstein, I was curious. I mean if there’s one person who understands monsters it’s del Toro, see The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth, Pinocchio, and Pacific Rim. The trailer looked interesting, but I was still planning on avoiding it. (I said I’m over the fear, I don’t have to actively seek it out OKAY). Unfortunately for me the movie is nominated for Best Picture; del Toro is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay; and Jacob Elordi is nominated for Best Supporting Actor as Frankenstein’s Monster, or as he’s referred to in this version: the Creature.

But enough therapy, how was the movie?

Oh, it was fantastic. The cinematography is gorgeous. The costuming and set design are perfection. While the costumes are embellished and intentionally over designed, they’re reminiscent of the era. Oscar Isaac looks great in literally every suit they put him in and the red scarf and gloves are on my wishlist now. The entire cast is perfect. Mia Goth plays dual roles as Elizabeth, Victor’s muse, and Caroline, Victor’s mother. Lars Mikkelson, Charles Dance, and Christoph Waltz play supporting father and authority figures to Victor. And, Jacob Elordi as the Creature is actually really great casting.

The design and make up for Jacob Elordi’s performance is incredible. Yes, the creature is still scarred and patched together, but his skin is now a ghostly white. He’s very gaunt. Every muscle and sinew is visible, because Victor is a surgeon with precise knowledge of human anatomy. He’s no longer intentionally hideous like Boris Karloff’s or De Niro’s performance, but he still has a menacing appearance that would worry a stranger. To me, Jacob Elordi disappears into the role of the Creature. His mannerisms are otherworldly and strange, but as he grows familiar with the world he tries to emulate human movements. He plays a hurt sympathetic Creature looking for his place in a cruel world.

This version still has it’s changes. For one, a lot of the focus is shifted to Victor’s origins and reasons to create the monster. William, his brother, is aged up and engaged to Elizabeth. Waltz plays Harlander (not to be confused with the hockey player) a wealthy arms dealer who funds Victor’s experiment. Someone who loves the book may feel disappointed, but I personally love the approach Del Toro took. The dynamic between Victor and the Creature are more clearly a father and son. Victor, who has no interest in the living, is bored and frustrated by the childlike innocence displayed by the creature.

Del Toro balances what a history of film has done to our ideas of Frankenstein with the original ideas of Mary Shelley’s novel. There’s still the horror of building a body and the creation with lightning, but Victor is now telling his tale to the arctic explorers. The Creature still scary, but there’s no longer a violent mob with pitchforks and torches chasing him to a windmill. He’s no longer scared of fire, but Victor still tries using fire to destroy him.

My favorite part of the novel is the sequence where the Creature hides in a farmhouse spying on the occupants. He learns to speak and forages for them. When the men of the house leave for a hunting trip, he makes himself known to the blind man who embraces him and teaches him to read. It’s nice tender sequence that makes it’s way into the movie. Jacob Elordi’s stuttered and broken speech are gradually repaired and the Blind Man calls him his friend. It’s the one happy memory the Creature has. It’s a scene that didn’t make it into the 1931 version and its a very different image of the Creature than that horrible thing I saw on tv as a kid.