Worth seeing:

Director:	Guillermo del Toro
Featuring:	Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac, Charles Dance, Christoph Waltz, David Bradley, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen, Mia Goth, Ralph Ineson
Length:	149 minutes
Certificate:	15
Country:	Mexico, US
Released:	17th October 2025, now showing on Netflix

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) has a lot to live up to – his father (Charles Dance) was the finest surgeon of his generation and won’t accept anything less from the son who carries his name – and his reputation.

But when even his father can’t save his mother’s life, Victor decides to turn his medical expertise towards preserving life.

When he develops a way to reanimate dead organs by pumping them full of electricity, the medical establishment tries to shut him down, but a wealthy foreign arms dealer, Harlander (Christoph Waltz), backs him with all the resources he needs for his research – with only the possibility that he might ask a favour at the end.

When Victor finally creates a monster (Jacob Elordi), out of body parts from hanged criminals and fallen soldiers, it doesn’t develop as planned and, as an echo of his own father’s sentiment, rather than be disappointed with his offspring, he burns down his laboratory and flees, leaving the creature to burn up in the flames.

But the creature survives and thrives – and hunts Frankenstein down to seek his revenge for his rejection. However, their final encounter, close to the North Pole, has unexpected consequences for both of them.

WHAT’S IT LIKE?

Frankenstein, by Guillermo del Toro. What more do I need to say?

This is an adaptation of a story many will be familiar with by a director whose visual style has been reinforced in films from Pan’s Labyrinth to The Shape of Water.

Set a couple of decades closer to us than previous versions of the film, the gothic horror suits del Toro’s vision, as he adds his own tweaks to the story – Frankenstein’s true love being engaged to his brother, among them – but the basic building blocks are there – from the unconventional scientist regretting his biggest achievement to the havoc that causes for those closest to him. The creature’s learning journey and the overall narrative structure of Mary Shelley’s 19th century classic novel are also largely intact.

While the costumes and production design are arresting, the emotional core of this film is as empty as you might expect from a film about the reanimation of dead bodies. Frankenstein himself is clearly the beating heart of the story, with his blinkered ambition and determination – the disappointment that follows – and his love for the wrong woman, which collectively make him as fragile as the bodies he stitches together, but they don’t make it easy to empathise with him. His father is ruthlessly heartless, his brother a drip, Elizabeth a precocious know-it-all and the meek and mild monster learns to love and hate at a pace suitable for the narrative. Only Christoph Waltz’s sinister benefactor adds a sense of enigmatic humanity.

Given that the aim is to reanimate dead bodies and Frankenstein gets his supplies from the gallows and the battlefield, you do wonder why he takes so much care to stitch together parts from as many bodies as he can, rather than just breathing a bit of life straight back into the body of a recently hanged criminal – or a fallen general.

It’s a visually stunning but emotionally stunted exploration of the fine line between humanity and monstrosity as the boundaries between the two are blurred. But while the journey is thought-provoking, the final destination is not particularly surprising or satisfying.