A Review on Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein" by Adriana Hazlett

Image: Netflix

I admit I’m a period piece snob. I also admit I’m a freak for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Being one probably correlates with being the other. But because I’m both, I was pessimistic about Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Frankenstein, which began its limited theatrical release on October 17, 2025.

I was worried Del Toro’s would be another over-dramatized, over-simplified Frankenstein — another “mad scientist” or “‘It’s alive!’” or “Bride of Frankenstein” adaptation. Particularly, I was worried about The Creature. Not pop culture’s green, imbecilic creature, but about Shelley’s Creature, for whom I admit, again, I probably feel an inordinate amount of empathy. Frankenstein’s film adaptations are notoriously bad at capturing the essence of the novel’s Creature. Generally, I was wary of the ways Del Toro would stray from the novel. 

Del Toro did stray. A number of plot points and characters are rearranged or omitted. I wasn’t completely sure why Victor drank milk all the time in this Frankenstein. (As I write, I realize the milk is probably a stand-in for his obsession with his mother, creating life, etc.) But, Victor drinks a lot of milk here; Elizabeth is not his sister; there’s no Henry Clerval, just to give some examples. 

But –– and this was really a shock to me (a snob, a purist)–– I did not care about the straying. Even if Del Toro’s Frankenstein was not a good translation of Shelley’s, it was, in my opinion, a good adaptation. (“Good” is an understatement because I did go see it again only four days after I saw it the first time.) If adaptations are interpretations of the source material, then they may choose to reimagine or recast aspects of the original. Thirty minutes into (my first viewing of) the movie, I thought to myself, “What aspects is Del Toro focusing on? While straying from Shelley’s novel, what is he preserving? What is Del Toro channeling from the original Frankenstein?”

What Del Toro’s Frankenstein does is capture the creature’s humanity and the humanness of the relationship between Victor and The Creature — and for this, I’m genuinely grateful. The complexity of The Creature and its relationship with its maker has always been, to me, the most compelling and important thing about Shelley’s Frankenstein. Shelley’s Creature has a particular nearness to humanhood. Its capacity to feel, think, and speak is absolutely essential to the themes of the original, even though it has been repeatedly botched in various film adaptations. Not so in Del Toro’s. 

Del Toro’s Creature is intelligent, like Shelley’s. It mirrors a child when it comes alive. It’s intense curiosity fuels its development from a naive being to one that learns to speak, read, and eventually comprehend Paradise Lost, all as in the novel. The initial “purity” of the creature is reflected in this movie. The Creature tenderly feeds a deer when in nature for the first time, and is frightened when his “father” yells at him. Then, the deer is shot, and The Creature is too. And eventually, The Creature comes to conceive that the man “did not hate the wolf; the wolf did not hate the sheep, but violence felt inevitable between them,” that “this was the way of the world: it would hunt and kill you for being who you are.” (Direct quote from movie. I was writing that shit down in the theater.) Maybe it’s because you know and can kind of tell it’s Jacob Elordi under there, but Del Toro’s Creature elicits real, convincing empathy– its disposition, voice, and face are all very close to how Shelley describes them. 

Del Toro also emphasises its relationship to Victor, both as a son and as a parallel of him. It’s almost on-the-nose when The Creature first comes alive and Victor screams out “sun!” showing light from the window, while it really sounds like Victor is saying “son” to the creature. Much later in the movie, William tells Victor directly, “You are the monster.” 

Del Toro’s final scenes, which notably deviate from Shelley’s, play up the humanness of the creature, the “monster-ness” of Victor, and their father-son relationship. Victor asks for The Creature’s forgiveness, and The Creature gives it, and one of them (I can’t remember who) says, “Perhaps now we can both be human.” Del Toro ends Frankenstein much more happily than Shelley. Shelley’s creature does not forgive Victor, and Victor doesn’t ask for forgiveness. The creature doesn’t free Walton’s ship from the ice; he says he’s going off to commit suicide. It’s an interesting choice. Maybe it’s a “movie” ending versus a “book” ending. I’m not sure how I feel about it. 

I’m thinking of Mia Goth, as Elizabeth, saying in her mousy little voice, “Choice is the seat of the soul.” This prompts us to ask why Del Toro makes the choices he does. They might be entirely due to his personal interpretations, but horror films (and all films, really) typically have their fingers on a cultural pulse. Why present a humanoid, empathy-eliciting Creature and a monstrous, contempt-eliciting Victor in our present climate? Does it reflect efforts to approach differences with more understanding? The film’s trailer shakes out, “Only monsters play gods.” Is it a critique of tech and business giants who “play gods?”

Whatever it is or isn't, I, my Frankenstein-worshipping self, am grateful that Del Toro brings to the fore what has been missing from so many adaptations of the story: the creature as Shelley wrote it, and its humanity and intricacy as a character. The Creature unstitches manifold threads of thought – thoughts about innate purity and cruelty, about what makes a monster, what makes a human, and whether the two exist inside each other or with each other, just like the limbs of different bodies in the creature. 

I would write a lot more about this adaptation. Other choices stand out to me– the changes to Elizabeth’s character, the creature’s incapability to die, Victor’s patron for his research. It’s different from Shelley’s book. That book is holy to me, but Del Toro’s Frankenstein is a respectful and very well-made adaptation that upon an aspect that is fundamental to the book, and my favorite part of it. So, from a snob, good job, Del Toro.