God bless the geeks and the freaks.
After all, they are who we have to thank for what I am considering one of the best adaptations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein EVER. Now, I don’t want to Get Out this movie (aka overhype it so much that the very sight of its poster and the very utterance of its name pisses me the fuck off to no end), but I do want to give this movie every flower it deserves on its well-made grave. I know nobody cares, but I just have to take an aside to gush about this film particularly because it was a long time coming and it did not disappoint. Anyone that knows me knows I was heartbroken when initially, Universal approached Guillermo del Toro about directing a new line of monster movies, but the time commitment and the potential lack of creative control meant he turned it down. I am so very glad I live in the timeline where they managed to hand him a Universal movie monster, and not just any single one, but probably the one he understands the most as a lover of monsters. I promise I’ll try to say something worth reading while I try to discuss why I enjoyed the film so much as someone that writes books and movies (Note: I started writing screenplays in 2024; done with one, working on a second, and will begin two or more in 2026, so cross your fingers for me, darlings!)
As such, I will be spoiling the entirety of the novel and the new del Toro adaptation, so if you wanna go in unspoiled, watch it, then pop back in here. Spoiler warning for everything below!
I think what I want to talk about enough to bother you all with a blog post is that I am so delighted to be right that del Toro’s changes to the story all were changes that I not only like, but appreciate. I usually am a bit wary of anytime there are large differences between a book and an adaptation, but del Toro is arguably my favorite director of all-time (no offense, Mr. Nolan, but you lost me so fucking hard with Tenet that it’s crazy) because he understands story and character on such a wonderful level. I know that making movies is a business and so a lot of these decisions are made for money reasons, but my favorite thing about del Toro is that everything he makes has his vision in it. And del Toro’s vision is so clear and so concise because he gives a shit about story and character. I love the simple care he puts into making you follow someone’s journey, no matter how dark or violent or scary, and it ends up weaving in such elements of beauty that I’m always left with a sigh of wistful relief when I see his films, and this one is no different.
To avoid this becoming a twenty page gush-fest, I’ll focus on two areas that I think are why this film is not only important, but why I enjoyed it so much.
First, let’s talk about the changes to the story that I truly think added so much to an already great book.
For anyone that’s been out of a classroom for a long time or isn’t an avid reader, I’m sure you probably either only know some of the basic plot of the novel or you’ve seen the famous Boris Karloff version. What I really love is that del Toro was able to capture, in my opinion, the best of those three worlds.
The Karloff version is the one most people know that introduced the idea of electrical instruments or a combination of chemical and electrical reactions to reanimate the Creature. The monster is also never referred to as Frankenstein in the Karloff version, but the people mistook the movie to mean it was his name, so that also was something del Toro and other adaptations have had to correct over the years. Karloff’s version is also the one with the disabled assistant named Fritz; Fritz was created for the stage play version of the story, and he is not in the novel, and so he’s not in del Toro’s version nor is he actually Igor, who was made popular by one of the sequels to the movie. The Karloff version also had the Creature have little to no speech development and remained basically childlike except in fits of rage or fear, and that is probably the largest departure between the Karloff version and the novel.
The places where all three intersect are interesting. Del Toro has the Creature intelligent and learning, same as the book, but he takes the chemical and electrical aesthetic from the Karloff movies to use for how Victor Frankenstein creates the Creature, which is not specified by method in the novel. I really enjoyed how he found a way to nod to Karloff version that made this story a household name and helped movie monsters leap forward in how they were written and acted.
The first change I want to talk about is the decision to switch Victor’s best friend Henry to his younger brother. This change I truly liked, but I think it was just a bit underdeveloped compared to what else I’d have liked to have seen. It gives us this really nice amount of underlying tension, as you see his brother Henry is very soft spoken and normal, whereas Victor is loud and abrasive. Being alone after the passing of their father made him a very submissive younger brother, but he does more here than I think Henry did in the original 1931 Frankenstein, as his part was also cut for time. Here, Henry is a foil to Victor, showing how enabling someone with self-destructive tendencies almost always leads to you, the enabler, being hurt by that same abuser. There are several points where Henry could have chosen to do something that would hurt Victor’s feelings, but might have spared him tragedy, but he doesn’t intervene. For instance, Victor hides that he’s responsible for Harlander’s death. Henry could have asked more questions or forced Victor to hand the Creature to the authorities for murder and implicate himself, but he didn’t do it. He never involved the authorities since he knew it would take his brother away and he seemed to think he could always mitigate the damage that Victor did, but he was fatally wrong. I really wanted more of this brotherhood, but again, you can’t fit everything into a movie, so it remains a good but underdeveloped piece of the puzzle. I really liked Henry calling Victor a monster before he dies; it is something that’s been missing from many adaptations of the book in my eyes. It speaks volumes that Victor is somehow angry at the Creature when it’s his own actions that result in the deaths of Henry and Elizabeth both, shirking all the blame and all the responsibility. He truly is a monster.
The next change I want to talk about is the decision to have Elizabeth enamored with the Creature rather than in the novel where she is betrothed to Victor. What a choice! What a change! In the novel, Elizabeth never meets the Creature; it only appears on her wedding night to murder her out of revenge for Victor refusing to create him a companion. Not that other stories haven’t done it, but to me, this version might be the strongest part of the film other than the Creature himself. What impresses me the most about the choice to have her enamored with the Creature is it does this neat transition from an almost motherly, protective thing to the Creature growing into his manhood, personality, and maturity, so he becomes a man that could have been good to her in many ways since she was a lost soul. She is immediately taken with him as a woman in a society where for the most part, she will never get what she wants. She was born in a time period where all she can do is live under a man’s boot, and she doesn’t even get to really pick which man and which boot. She sees the Creature’s pain and she calls Victor out on his shit immediately, which is why I loved her the instant I met her breaking him down about the War. Elizabeth is a character that historically has little to no agency; in the Karloff version, the most she summons up is the courage to visit Victor when he’s acting erratic. She never gets to do anything else in the story, though she does survive in the movie where she dies in the novel, but here, Elizabeth actually has agency in a surprising way. Elizabeth’s choice to condemn Victor for mistreating the Creature is the first really excellent change that I love the del Toro and his writers made. It’s such a great conversation to have about what makes love what it is in the first place. She felt a connection with his pure innocence and his pain at being somewhere he never wanted to be against his will. They manage to make it feel so authentic and heartbreaking rather than as weird as I’m sure normal people would consider it, and that’s why I love del Toro. I love his ability to take something weird, scary, and off-putting and recontextualize it into something beautiful. Her decision to jump in front of the Creature (and God bless, she had no idea the damn thing can’t die, poor baby died for nothing) actually hands her back her agency, when normally it would be considered Stuffed into the Fridge. That’s what I found the most surprising—I usually HATE this trope. I hate it when a girl dies just so the man in the story will be sad. Fuck that. Let women have agency apart from the men that love them, and ironically, Elizabeth’s choice to take the bullet for the Creature gave her back her agency in a story where she couldn’t truly act to do what she wanted. There is a chance she could have run away with him, but Victor’s selfish hatred and cowardice took that from her, but she still gets to be herself and die as herself by asking the Creature to take her away with him. Seriously, I mean it. It might be the best thing about the entire adaptation, personally, for me.
The only downside is that I thought this film was building up to have the Creature ask Victor to change Elizabeth into his companion, but they don’t do it. They just let her die and the matter is dropped; in the novel, Victor does make the companion, but destroys it at the last minute out of fear of what the two of them might do to the world. It’s not a soul-crushing thing for me, but it was disappointing as I felt it might give her a little extra agency to come back as the undead, but get to live an eternal life with someone that cares for her deeply. It could be the studio vetoed it, but either way, I would have liked her to become The Bride for a Sequel Hook at the end, personally.
Finally (at least in terms of our discussion of the changes), I really liked del Toro deciding to change the Creature from vengeful to sympathetic and from a mortal man into an immortal one. In the novel, the Creature is sympathetic until it confronts Victor and asks for a companion since Victor rejected him and so did the rest of society. The two of them are locked in a hateful chase and cat and mouse game until the confrontation on the boat where he finally is injured enough that he will die and the Creature confronts him one last time. I knew that del Toro would write our Creature sympathetic and I love everything about how this version of him came to be. It’s such a great change to make him immortal, as he is completely right: some of us are born against our will and we live in constant pain, and death is the only comfort some of us will ever know, and Victor’s blind ambition has stolen that from the Creature. It is amazing to me the Creature came to pity and forgive him, as I know I’d be irreversibly ruined by the thought of never dying. What I love most is that it really does change the message and tone of the novel for me in a good way. The novel is much more pessimistic with the Creature realizing he is no happier having gotten his revenge on Victor and he will commit suicide so he will never harm anyone else. By having the Creature forgive Victor—even though Victor has done NOTHING to earn it—he can find the only peace he will ever have if he truly can’t die. The way Victor patted his head just made me burst into tears the second time I saw it, much like his scene with the old man. Del Toro and Jacob both do so much fucking work that really makes the Creature’s journey land. It’s why you’ll see me refer to the book version and the early part of the script of this movie as “it” and then after the Creature becomes a man with experiences, I refer to the Creature as “him.” He truly moves from an it to a him over the course of the film in a truly wonderful way, and I really hope the superb writing and acting earns them some Oscar nods, even though I know the fucking Academy hates speculative fiction and asking them to nominate Sinners and Frankenstein (you know, two films directed and starring people of color) in the same year over that godawful upcoming Avatar 3 is going to be a fight to the fucking death. But I digress. They add so many dimensions to the Creature in this adaptation and I think it’s going to really be considered one of the best ones in history.
Next, what I really wanted to gush about is the way that the narrative takes Victor to task for his blind ambition and irresponsible denial. Now, I have already heard a bunch of stuffy old dudes on various social media bleating about del Toro “making Victor the villain” and I’m sorry, time to be a dick: you ain’t read the book if you ever thought Victor was NOT the fucking villain.
(Side note: Can we stop that, by the way? Every single time a movie that women identify with personally, especially a romance or gothic horror story, that is universally praised and makes money, a bunch of men come out of the woodworks to complain about the “author’s intent” and complain about superficial aspects or they just plain “can’t explain why they don’t like it but they don’t” and they need everyone to hear them. Please, let’s make this the movie where we stop fucking doing that shit. If women are enjoying something that’s generally agreed is quality work and you hate it, that’s valid and fine, but also, stop fucking raining on women’s parades when the thing they enjoyed that was made specifically for them did not work for you. You’re allowed to dislike it, and you’re allowed to say you disliked it, but if you got on your fucking post just to dislike a thing women identified with, close your laptop or the app and ask yourself why you felt that fucking impulse in the first place. Do it for me. Thanks, chums.)
Victor Frankenstein here is only slightly more villainous than his novel self, if you ask me. The reason why is that of all the people identifying with this version of the Creature, I identify directly with the idea that I hate being alive and I never asked to be alive; it was the will of my parents and…biology…frankly, as I don’t believe for one second God’s sorry ass wanted me here. Therefore, I LOVED this portrayal of Victor as an arrogant, in-denial, irresponsible, selfish coward. Oh, I loved it. I had longed for a less sympathetic version of him that took him to task over playing God. Forget the religious implications; what truly came through for me in this film is his fucking irresponsible nature. How dare a fucking surgeon expect something that was dead to have retained knowledge and understand in a matter of fucking weeks. It takes a human child a year to fucking talk, and yes, that information was already available to him as a doctor and just in general. Victor is utterly horrid the entire time and I am so glad they did not choose to spare him. They make him a detestable sack of shit, to the degree I was glad to see him die. The scene that truly tore it was “make me save you.” I swear to God, it was the instant I wished I could kill Victor myself. Not only did you choose to kill the Creature inhumanely—fire HURTS, and so does smoke inhalation—but he pretends the Creature could ever save itself when he already decided to destroy him. He demands the Creature say another word and the Creature says Elizabeth. Victor then pretends he didn’t hear it and leaves him to burn to death. Like I said, it was the moment I knew I hated him to the depths of my soul. I also know because he’s portrayed by Oscar Isaac, a snack and a half, if I do say so myself, there will be a bunch of girlies that insist he’s innocent and did nothing wrong. Yeah, uh, avoid those girlies. They’re not well women, and they’re probably John Walker apologists too but I digress. I know there will be an uprising of people who hate this version of Victor for being a cold, callous fucking coward, and I’m the opposite. I fully commend del Toro for not bending to the urge to make Victor not a dickhead. He’s a dickhead in the book and he’s a dickhead here, and that’s great.
Another smaller, more cosmetic thing I wanted to talk about is I didn’t notice that Mia Goth played Victor’s mother Claire, as she was hidden behind a veil for most of it and her hair was dark (I’m face-blind sometimes, please excuse that) and after it was pointed out to me, I loved that so much of Victor’s obsession is clearly a byproduct of her death. He is angry at life or God that the only thing he ever loved was taken away and he was too young to stop it or do anything about it, so he has to create or else he will admit life took something he’ll never get back and he can’t deal with the idea. Victor is motivated by selfishness alone and it’s why he is so impatient and ugly with the Creature, refusing to give it any basic human decency as he considers it an experiment gone wrong, not a man, and certainly not a person. It’s incredible how far into his denial he flies, and I wish Act One had been a little shorter so that Act Three could have spent the time forcing him to reconcile with the fact that all of this was about his mother and lack of acceptance of death’s cruelty, and that the deaths of Henry and Elizabeth are on him and him alone. I wanted him to struggle and learn, but again, I believe it was cut for time, but I still enjoyed the motif and theme a lot. It was something I hadn’t seen in other interpretations of the story.
Okay, I swear, I’m almost done—the very last thing that I had to give its flowers is the set and costume/makeup. It’s honestly one of the most gorgeous films I’ve ever seen. I haven’t been this wowed since Prey (2022) came out. Del Toro is so great with the use of color and it really shines in the film. The standout for me is Elizabeth’s green, turquoise, and purple bonnet. WOW. It’s just a breathtaking period piece and his entire team deserves an Oscar for how hard they worked. The movie’s aesthetic is so good I was laughing after I finished watching it the first time because I knew there are entire generations of people that will make this film’s aesthetic their entire personality. And who can blame them! If this movie came out when I was in my emo phase, oh, I’d be in Hot Topic in short order buying crap from the merchandising section from this movie.
Alright, I promised, so I’m done gushing now. I hope there are nothing but good things in store for everyone involved in making this movie and I can’t stress enough that I’m not trying to overhype it, but I am genuinely excited it lived up to my expectations. It adds so much to the story and I didn’t feel as if we missed too much of the book’s spirits, but your mileage may vary.
Either way, what I can say is that del Toro loves his geeks and freaks, and I hope he continues making great movies like this one for us to enjoy for years to come. Here’s to you, Frankenstein (2025). Your accomplishments are well-earned.
Love,
Kyo
