In a gothic whirlwind at the Venice Film Festival last month, Guillermo del Toro finally unveiled his long-gestating adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a project that's simmered in the director's imagination for nearly two decades. The film, starring Jacob Elordi as the tragic Creature, Mia Goth in a pivotal role, and Oscar Isaac as the ambitious Victor Frankenstein, promises to blend del Toro's signature visual poetry with raw emotional depth. Indeed, from the first glimpses, it's clear this isn't your grandfather's monster movie—it's a brooding exploration of creation and isolation, set against a backdrop of 19th-century Europe.
Elordi, fresh off his breakout turns in Saltburn and Euphoria, transforms into something staggeringly otherworldly here. Critics are buzzing about how he brings a vulnerable intelligence to the Creature, making the stitched-together being less a rampaging beast and more a poignant outcast yearning for connection. Mia Goth, meanwhile, delivers a chilling performance as Elizabeth, Victor's fiancée, infusing the character with a quiet menace that echoes del Toro's penchant for multifaceted women in horror. And Isaac? He captures the scientist's hubris with a fervor that's both mesmerizing and, at times, uncomfortably familiar in our age of unchecked ambition.
However, not everything lands perfectly in this 149-minute epic. Some reviewers note that the film's lavish production design—think shadowy laboratories and fog-shrouded graveyards—occasionally overshadows the narrative's emotional beats, leading to moments that feel more stylized than substantive. Moreover, Elordi's strikingly handsome take on the monster has sparked debate: is this faithful to Shelley's tormented soul, or does it soften the horror too much? Del Toro, ever the defender of his vision, has called the Creature "beautiful in an otherworldly way," pushing back against purists who crave Boris Karloff's iconic scars.
The movie hit a limited theatrical release just yesterday, October 17, with a full Netflix rollout slated for November 7. Early scores hover around a solid 7.3 on IMDb, praising its heart amid the spectacle. Yet as del Toro reanimates this enduring myth, it leaves us pondering the fine line between genius and monstrosity in our own world.