Guillermo Del Toro Teases The Frankenstein Adaptation Horror Fans Deserve
Back to basics.
It’s been over 200 years since Mary Shelley first brought Frankenstein, also known as The Modern Prometheus, into the world. The story she originally conceived to combat writer’s block has since become an inimitable part of the zeitgeist: it’s perhaps the first true sci-fi horror story, and like Dracula, it’s gone on to inspire countless horror stories that followed.
For all its infamy, though, a good adaptation of Frankenstein is not so easy to find. Shelley’s mad scientist and the monster he created have appeared, in some form, in at least 190 films, but the number of films that actually do those characters justice is few and far between. Universal’s 1931 adaptation essentially created the version of Frankenstein’s monster we best recognize today, but even that took major liberties with Shelley’s work. The adaptations that followed only doubled down on our idea of her story; we’ve never gotten a truly accurate retelling on the big screen. The ones that get close to the romanticism of the original fable, like Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 adaptation, aren’t particularly good, either.
Leave it to Guillermo del Toro, then, to try and set the record straight. The horror director is teaming up with Netflix to deliver a new vision of an old horror story — and if Frankenstein’s first trailer is anything to go on, this could be the adaptation the novel has long deserved.
For decades, del Toro has carved out a niche as the go-to monster movie guy. His left-of-center approach to classic creature features is endlessly refreshing, and it’s safe to assume he’ll be bringing his own unique aesthetic spin to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The costume and set design that defined films like Cronos, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Crimson Peak are on full display in the Frankenstein trailer, but story-wise, the film seems to be reaching for a more classical adaptation of the novel.
The trailer introduces Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) as a weathered, remorseful man holed up in the Arctic, a crucial locale that most Frankenstein films tend to leave out. This is a Frankenstein years removed from the experiment that would define his life; years after his monster becomes sentient and begins to make his own demands of Frankenstein. Saltburn’s Jacob Elordi portrays “The Creature” in del Toro’s film, and though we don’t get a good look at him in the trailer, it’s clear he’s embodying a menace that will redefine our ideas of the classic monster.
Frankenstein seems to be taking on more of a cat-and-mouse bent, with the Creature searching the world for his creator, and Frankenstein himself looking back on the destruction he’s wrought. It’s going to be fascinating to see how the themes of Shelley’s novel play out in del Toro’s adaptation; what little Netflix has shown us proves that this story is in good hands.
