Frankenstein movie review: Guillermo del Toro’s haunting poetic vision brings humanity to the monster

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein isn’t just another adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic — it’s a haunting, deeply personal reimagining that asks what it really means to create life, and to destroy it.

Written, directed and produced by del Toro, this 2025 film transforms the familiar Gothic tale into something heartbreakingly intimate — a story about ambition, rejection, and the long shadow of inherited pain.

Oscar Isaac plays Victor Frankenstein, a scientist so consumed by his own genius that he forgets his humanity. His obsession with creation gives birth to the Creature, portrayed with raw vulnerability by Jacob Elordi. What follows isn’t simply a tale of man versus monster, but a tragic reflection of how pain is passed down, reshaped, and repeated. Around them, a stellar cast — Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Charles Dance, Lars Mikkelsen, and David Bradley — inhabit del Toro’s fog-filled world where beauty and horror coexist.

From the very beginning, del Toro’s touch is unmistakable. Every frame glows with candlelight and melancholy. The film feels carved from grief — a poem about the loneliness of being alive. But beneath its Gothic grandeur lies something far more tender: a meditation on generational trauma.

Victor is a maddening character — arrogant, selfish, almost impossible to like — yet del Toro lets us see the damage underneath. He’s not a villain born from ego alone, but from a father’s cruelty. The abuse Victor suffered echoes through his actions; the way he abandons his creation mirrors the neglect he endured. It’s a devastating cycle — the hurt child becoming the unfeeling parent — and del Toro captures it with aching precision.

Mia Goth is nothing short of mesmerising. Her Elizabeth isn’t just a love interest, but the film’s fragile conscience — a soft light cutting through Victor’s storm. There’s something unearthly about her presence, as if she were both within and beyond the world del Toro built. Every scene she inhabits feels alive, glowing with empathy and quiet sorrow.

Those who know Shelley’s novel by heart will notice the changes — the timeline, the relationships, even the ending — but they’re done with care. You can feel del Toro’s respect for the source material in every choice. He’s faithful to Shelley’s spirit, even as he reshapes her story into something more forgiving. The ending, especially, carries a touch of hope that Shelley denied her characters — a small mercy that feels entirely del Toro.

And then there’s Jacob Elordi’s Creature. His performance is nothing short of astonishing — graceful, broken, and deeply human. He plays the Creature not as a monster, but as a soul stitched together from sadness and longing. His eyes alone tell the story of every outcast who ever wanted to be seen. It’s the kind of performance that lingers long after the screen fades to black.

Director Guillermo del Toro approaches his adaptation of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus not as a standard horror film but as a deeply emotional drama. He has repeatedly insisted that this is “an emotional story for me… I’m not doing a horror movie – ever.” From casting through to the final cut, del Toro treats the characters—especially Victor and the Creature—as vessels of inherited trauma and longing rather than mere monsters and mad scientists.

The screenplay, written by del Toro himself, combines a respectful nod to Shelley’s novel with his own personal obsessions: father-son relationships, the consequences of unrestrained creation, and the idea of the outsider yearning for connection. The dialogue and pacing carry a lyrical quality—Oscar Isaac notes he treated his lines as if they were in iambic pentameter.

Visually, the film is a symphony of carefully orchestrated craft. Cinematographer Dan Laustsen collaborates closely with del Toro to blend sweeping Gothic grandeur with intimate character moments. The production design and cinematography are rooted in real, tangible sets—not just CGI environments—with del Toro emphasising “old-fashioned craftsmanship” and real builds rather than simulation. Colour plays a significant role in the storytelling: del Toro describes the film’s palette and camera movement in terms of coded emotional states.

When Jacob Elordi's Creature is born, the lighting shifts from cold, clinical blues to a trembling gold as the Creature stands at the end of the bed, reaching towards its maker. Del Toro’s screenplay underplays the dialogue, letting silence carry the weight of awe and dread. Instead of revelling in the grotesque, del Toro lingers on the emotional birth of a soul. Victor’s face flickers between triumph and terror, while the Creature’s gaze reflects both confusion and a desperate need for recognition.

The result is a film that feels both epic in scale and deeply human in texture, each shot crafted to reflect the story’s themes of creation, abandonment and renewal.

Del Toro’s Frankenstein isn’t about science gone wrong — it’s about love withheld, and the ache it leaves behind. It’s a film that reminds us monsters are made, not born, and that understanding is a form of redemption. Gorgeously crafted and emotionally fearless, this is del Toro at his most vulnerable and visionary — a filmmaker looking at the creature, and finally seeing himself.