Netflix's Frankenstein jolts the classic tale with del Toro's signature flair

"He has described Frankenstein as "the quintessential teenage book," and his famous Bleak House in Los Angeles is filled with versions of the creature from various film and stage adaptations. Naturally, the director has also imagined turning it into a movie himself. "I dream I can make the greatest Frankenstein ever, but then if you make it, you've made it," he said a decade ago. "Whether it's great or not, it's done. You cannot dream about it anymore.""

"Del Toro's take on Frankenstein isn't a dramatic reinvention of the classic monster myth. Instead, it explores the story through the lens of the director's ongoing preoccupations: finding beauty in darkness, the tainting of innocence, and the inevitable conflict between parent and child. He then infuses the film with his signature sense of style and attention to detail, turning a 200-year-old story into something almost completely his own."

"The core of the story remains the same. It's told from two perspectives: first up is Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), an egomaniac singularly obsessed with the idea of conquering death. He shows his findings to respected doctors and scientists, but mostly everyone finds his theatrical demonstrations - which involve a ragged torso being jolted into a brief moment of life - unsettling and horrifying. That is until Victor meets Harlander (Christoph Waltz), a wealthy arms dealer who agrees to fund his reanimation research."

Guillermo del Toro has long been fascinated by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and views the novel as a formative, teenage touchstone. His Los Angeles Bleak House contains many creature iterations, and he has long imagined directing a cinematic version. His approach does not radically reinvent the myth but reframes it through motifs of beauty in darkness, corrupted innocence, and fraught parent-child dynamics. The film retains the core dual-perspective narrative, centering on Victor Frankenstein's obsessive quest to conquer death and his unsettling theatrical experiments. Financial backing from Harlander propels Victor's reanimation research, and the film emphasizes Victor's mania.

Read at The Verge