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It is literally impossible to count the number of movies that feature some version of Frankenstein’s monster, but it is certainly north of four hundred. Mary Shelley’s literary creation has become a filmic and cultural icon in a way perhaps unmatched by any other fictional character, having appeared on screen alongside almost everyone, from the obvious candidates like Dracula and the Wolfman to others such as Little Red Riding Hood, Fred Flintstone and Cleopatra. 

Then there are the thematic adaptations like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Weird Science and all of the other films where the book’s notions of hubristic invention and conflict with the freethinking, rebellious entity created by science are explored in a new setting. See here Robocop, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Poor Things and even Lilo & Stitch.

With all of this though there are relatively few straight adaptation’s of Shelley’s 1818 source material. The total here is probably around eighteen, a lot of which were actually made for TV. Even these tend to stray off from the original plot. Kenneth Branagh’s oddly maligned 1994 version purports to be the most faithful, it’s even titled Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but goes off in a very different direction at the end with the Elizabeth character. I remember this catching out a number of people in a seminar for the English Lit degree I was studying at the time when it became embarrassingly obvious that they had only seen the movie and not read the book, despite their claims to the contrary. My tutor was not amused. (I wasn’t one of them, I love this book and, come on – it’s only 350 pages!)

Now, adding to the long or the short list depending on which one you go for (it fits both), we have this new adaptation by visionary director Guillermo del Toro. Apparently del Toro has wanted to make this for a very long time, having fallen for it himself as a child when he sought out the book after seeing the classic James Whale’s classic Boris Karloff movie. The spooky, gothic sensibilities of this story have certainly found expression in much of his earlier work, as have tragically driven and destructively arrogant men. He came close to doing it in 2008 but at that time it fell to the wayside and it looked like Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein would become one of contemporary cinema’s greatest missed opportunities just like Guillermo del Toro’s The Hobbit. Apparently production was cancelled when the studio Universal decided it wanted Frankenstein to be part of a wider interlinked Dark Universe franchise, which with possible karma ultimately became an unmade project itself and one that no one considered a missed opportunity. 

When del Toro was negotiating a contract with Netflix then, this was suddenly back on the table. Certainly there is no denying that the first of the movies to have come out of this collaboration showed it was on his mind. The creation scene in 2022’s Pinocchio is straight from the pages of Shelley, fuelled as it is by rampant grief and out of control mania coupled with obsession and followed by repugnance just like when Victor Frankenstein brings his own grossly manufactured spawn to life.

Interestingly it is that key moment in the novel, where Victor Frankenstein first meets his monster and rejects him through repulsion, fear and guilt where this new movie diverts from its source material. Up until that point it follows Shelley’s story pretty closely but from here it interestingly becomes an even mix of her vision and del Toro’s. Whether it was chicken or egg the director’s found style most certainly suits this material though and atmospherically and design wise this is an astonishing piece of cinema. I have no objection to the narrative changes either as, as has been made clear, this is an oft told story in one respect or another and the characters are strongly in keeping with Shelley’s intentions. In the end this may not quite be Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein but it is most definitely Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and importantly it is also Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’s monster. Most incarnations of the creature have moved away from the erudite and articulate man she wrote about but del Toro has brought her ideas to the screen perfectly. This was originally a very sympathetic character and here more so with some of his greater destructive acts of anger rewritten and reframed. Jacob Elordi and Oscar Isaac are both excellent as the fated pair.

Alongside these two we have Christopher Waltz as the money man. Created for the film he is the benefactor whose ill gotten wealth and amoral attitude provides the resources for the central experiment, but who expects a no questions asked favour in return when the time comes. He’s Frankenstein’s mobster, as it were but is really just a plot device. More significantly we have Mia Goth’s portrayal of Elizabeth. Shelley was a great feminist but limited by the time in which she was writing her heroine never quite demonstrated the same spirit. Here she has great agency and a sharp scientific mind of her own which is great to see. The back and forth between her and Victor is not central but it brings some really nice moments and her relationship with the creature shows that unlike Victor she has great emotional intelligence as well as brains. Her arc is a little overshadowed, especially at its end, but she is a significant force in the film.

In the past I have spoken about something that I have dubbed Guillermoments in this director’s movies. These are the scenes where the spectacular macabre mixes deliciously with normal human existence, and often represents a loss of innocence. Ofelia’s first meeting with the Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth is one, the little girl retrieving her lost shoe in the shadows of a behemoth kaiju in Pacific Rim is another. Then there’s Elisa’s connection with the Amphibian man in The Shape of Water and Edith bravely confronting the ghosts in Crimson Peak. These snapshot incidents pepper del Toro’s work. I’d struggle to draw a comparative moment in this film though because the the whole thing seems to be built of them. 

After the wait Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is everything you would want it to be and does feel a little like a culmination of his career. It is most certainly a cinematic masterwork and there are not many filmmakers that could have managed this with equal skill. I still don’t think it’s his best film though. Perhaps it is because I am very familiar with the book but while this was full of dark delights and it takes its own directions, it held few surprises. If you compare it to what del Toro did with Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, this has less storytelling innovation. I’m not sure I consider this a criticism but I wonder if they could have taken a few more swings.

There is one thing that really bugged me though, perhaps unfairly. It is no spoiler to reveal that the movie ends with a quote from Lord Byron but I’m disappointed that a man, and this man in particular has the last word. As a woman Mary Shelley fought to come out from the shadow of male writers like Byron and her own husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and it feels a shame to me that this incredible adaptation of her best work be bookended in this way. Still, this movie does celebrate her in a way perhaps no other of the many, many adaptation has so this, along with so many other things del Toro brings to it, is to be applauded. Fittingly it will sit alongside vampires and zombies as one of my films of the year.