Guillermo Del Toro Searches for His Creator in 'Frankenstein'

Is this del Toro's masterpiece?

Frankenstein (2025) marks something of the end of an era: an era when streaming services (primarily Netflix) gave out hundreds of millions to top filmmakers to make their passion projects, doing whatever it takes to earn the most subscribers. This is how we got Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, and Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon films.

Now, as it’s become abundantly clear that the streaming wars are over (Netflix unsurprisingly never really stopped winning), and even Bob Iger over at Disney is more cautious about just throwing money at the wall with his Marvel and Star Wars shows. Filmmakers like Scorsese and Scott are turning back to traditional studios for their next projects rather than streaming, and even streaming companies like Apple are hedging their biggest bets like F1 by teaming up with studios like Warner Bros to help with the collateral.

Frankenstein, born out of a deal made back in 2023 that also ensured the creation of another passion project of his, Pinocchio, is not a film meant to be seen on your TV. In fact, getting to watch this at the Paris Theater in NYC, the famous historical theater now owned by Netflix, I couldn’t help but feel that I still wasn’t watching on a screen big enough.

For those unfamiliar with his work, Del Toro’s films have a unique aesthetic of lavishly and intricately designed sets mixed in with the grotesque and the macabre, best portrayed in films like the Hellboy films, Pan’s Labyrinth, and, more recently, Nightmare Alley. Of more interest to the readers of this blog, he also was raised Catholic and constantly makes references to his strict religious upbringing (which he has long since fallen away from) in his work. His last film, Pinocchio (my personal favorite of 2022) went so far as to have its main character literally go to Church and contemplate a Crucifix.

The Catholic connotations for this film were actually explicitly laid out by Del Toro at the beginning of this film in a short introductory video, in which he spoke about how his first memorable cinematic experience was watching the original 1931 Frankenstein as a kid in Guadalajara right after Mass. In fact, he says he fondly remembers Sundays as being time for “Mass and Monsters" as his family often went to the movies after going to Church (I accidentally recreated this by seeing this directly after Mass on a Sunday).

Interestingly, he expounds on this by saying:

Since I was a kid — I was raised very Catholic — I never quite understood the saints. And then when I saw Boris Karloff on the screen, I understood what a saint or a messiah looked like. So I’ve been following the creature since I was a kid, and I always waited for the movie to be done in the right conditions, both creatively in terms of achieving the scope that it needed for me to make it different, to make it at a scale that you could reconstruct the whole world.

There’s a lot to unpack here at first glance, but after seeing the film I think I understand it more.

The film hews perhaps more closely to the original novel than any other adaptation, going so far as to include the frame tale that allows the story to be told both from Victor Frankenstein (played brilliantly by Oscar Isaac) and his Monster (also played brilliantly by Jacob Elordi) when they reunite on a ship headed for the North Pole. The Catholic imagery abounds from the very start: Del Toro in previous interviews had described wanting to make a film that was “Miltonian”, referring to his love for Paradise Lost (which is read by the Monster in the film). We see Victor as a child praying to St. Michael the Archangel for guidance, and later seeing a vision of what he thinks to be the angel in a dream.

When Victor finally brings his creation to life, the creature is hoisted up on a device that looks very similar to a crucifix:

And for juxtaposition, here’s a shot of the Crucifix in Pinocchio.

Going back to the aforementioned quote from the director, one imagines a young Del Toro trying to make sense of the bloody Crucifix he would see at Church, and then seeing Boris Karloff’s monster and the misunderstood pantheon of creatures of the Universal Classic Monsters. Karloff’s Monster in particular is at his heart a kind soul, rejected by the world in a way that the shy, imaginative Del Toro could relate to.

I do not think that in his comments or in his imagery Del Toro is trying to be intentionally sacrilegious or inflammatory, rather, more and more in his art he is using his films to further understand the vivid portrayal of death he witnessed on the Crucifix every Sunday at Mass as a child, and to understand how the world could turn on a Man- a Man who is also God- who was only ever kind and good to those around Him and had the purest love for others.

This is embodied fully by Elordi’s Monster, who eschews any preconceptions one might have about the famous creature with a terribly vulnerable, human performance with incredible full-body makeup work. His Monster spends more time ruminating and thinking how to do good for others than any rampaging or walking around in the iconic Karloff walk. Meanwhile Victor, who was physically and emotionally abused by his own father (Charles Dance), ends up becoming just like the elder Frankenstein toward his own creation, always referring to him as “it” and whacking him with a cane similar to the one carried by his father. It isn’t until he meets Victor’s future sister-in-law, Elizabeth (Mia Goth) that he receives his first act of kindness: the first word he learns is ‘Victor’, but the second ‘Elizabeth’.

The production design- like in most of Del Toro’s work- is astounding, especially the tower in which Victor builds his laboratory, funded by Elizabeth’s uncle (Christoph Waltz, who never fails to steal the show in any movie). Del Toro is very particular with color symbolism, with the color red abounding not only through blood (make no mistake, this is a violent film), but also the color of the dresses that Victor’s mother and Elizabeth wear. This is contrasted by the sickly green that overshadows the laboratory, often giving the Monster the iconic green look over his pale white skin. The score by Del Toro regular Alexandre Desplat may be the best I’ve heard all year: it is hauntingly beautiful and elevates the film to a whole new level.

In reference to the piece I wrote recently on horror as a genre, it is interesting to note that Del Toro insists that this is not a horror film, and while watching the film I found myself agreeing. I wrote that a horror film must depict some evil that must in the end be counterbalanced and usually vanquished by the good. While this film certainly contains horrific elements (one scene in particular effectively shows how cavalier Victor is at disassembling/assembling the body parts he has amassed to create his monster), the evil is in the action of ‘playing God’ rather than the Monster itself. However, despite these elements a large part of this film is centered on the relationships and characterization rather than violence qua violence: any violence is used to portray the tragedy of the Monster as opposed to entertainment purposes.

I have to say this is one of the best movies I’ve seen in theaters in some time: the level of audiovisual wonder I felt mixed with the fascinating ideas on display reminded me of when I first saw Blade Runner 2049 in theaters way back in 2017. Elordi’s performance as the Monster, aided by the incredible makeup, makes for movie magic that you don’t see a lot of these days. I am excited to see what Del Toro does next and if he will continue to double down on his exploration of his childhood Faith through his films: I pray that eventually he finds his Way back Home to the Church!

Frankenstein is playing in limited theaters now and will hit Netflix on November 7.