🎬 Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein: A Monster Made of Poetry, Pain… and Pure Cinema Magic

There’s something comforting about a good monster story.

Maybe it’s that familiar little tremor in the chest… that delicious moment where disbelief loosens its grip and you willingly step into the dark with nothing but imagination as your lantern. Maybe it’s the same instinct that led me to fill dungeons with Balors, Spider Witches, Stone Giants, and reptilian nightmares. Or maybe it’s simply the knowledge that creatures; real or crafted; help us understand the parts of ourselves we try so hard to outrun.

Whatever the reason… I love monster movies. The proper ones. The ones that don’t mock the myth but honor it. The ones that remember that monsters are mirrors, not punchlines. And last night, as I watched Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, I felt that familiar, rare electricity; the same current I felt the first time I saw Coppola’s Dracula… the same “suspension of the soul” I wrote about in my soulmates post.

This is not just another retelling of Mary Shelley’s classic. This is, pun intended, a resurrection.

And good grief… is it glorious!

A Monster Reborn And More Human Than Humans

Del Toro’s Frankenstein is his dream project and takes the bones of Shelley’s myth, places them in the frostbitten heart of 1857, and breathes life into them with the fury and tenderness of a craftsman who has waited decades for this moment.

The movie opens poignantly where the novel nearly ends, in the Arctic, with the creator and creation circling each other like wounded gods and from there spirals into a tale that is at once sweeping, terrifying, and devastatingly intimate.

Jacob Elordi’s Creature is… unbelievably haunting yet gentle and completely terrifying, filled with a rage that is neither evil nor senseless, but born from a childhood that lasted five minutes and contained nothing but pain.

Meanwhile, Oscar Isaac’s Victor is a perfect storm. A man so consumed by brilliance, ambition, and feverish righteousness that he stands right at the edge of madness without ever slipping into caricature.

And somewhere in the background lurks Christoph Waltz, giving one of his warmest, most deceptively layered performances in years. Mia Goth, whose name basically is the genre, completes the circle with a role steeped in beauty, dread, and a strangely luminous morbidity.

A Visual Feast… A Gothic Dream… A Nightmare You Want to Live In

Del Toro’s worldbuilding is always immaculate… but here? It’s pure alchemy.

Every frame looks carved from lacquered shadows and blood-red candlelight. Every corridor, costume, and stitched piece of flesh feels like it’s whispering.

The Creature’s body is a map - an island of plates of flesh fused like a geological accident. Yes, its horrible and gory and filled with visceral scenes of blood and horror but at the heart of it all lies pure breathtaking cinematography.

 Frankenstein's tower, the birthplace of the creature, is an amalgamation of gothic horror infused with a steam punk style that had me completely captivated. Every scene, every frame bears the landmarks of a classic painting wrapped around a narrative derived directly from the literature.

In true Del Toro fashion, he uses his signature style to bring to life Victor's vision of a crimson-winged figure. Angel or demon?  The interpretation is left for tou to decide.

Alexander Desplat’s score ties it all together, thundering and grieving and yearning exactly where you need it to.

More Than Horror… It’s a Tragedy of Souls Searching for Home

What moved me most; beyond the immaculate craft, the superb acting, the gothic splendor; was Del Toro’s loyalty to the emotional heart of Shelley’s story.

A tale of loneliness, abandonment and of creators who refuse responsibility and creations who never asked to exist.

The Creature doesn’t just ask “Why was I made?”

He asks the far more painful question:

“Why was I made like this?”

And that… that hits hard.

For someone who loves monsters, who makes monsters, who understands exactly why we hold them close in stories, this film felt like an ode. A dark embrace. A reminder that “monstrous” is often just another form of misunderstood.

Del Toro didn’t just adapt Frankenstein.

He resurrected it.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

One of the best films of the year.

A gothic triumph, a visual spell, and an emotional gut punch wrapped in velvet and stormlight.

My dungeon-loving heart?

Completely undone!