NOW ON NETFLIX! From the magnificent visionary mind of Guillermo del Toro comes Frankenstein, opening amid the howling winds and frozen silence of the North Pole. A ship and its crew, trapped in the solid ice, witness a sudden explosion out on the horizon. The captain sends men to investigate, and through the blizzard, they discover wreckage scattered across the tundra—and a half-dead man lying in the snow. As they attempt to pull him to safety, a monstrous figure emerges from the storm and attacks with terrifying strength before disappearing back into the white void. The unconscious man is brought aboard, where the captain learns his name: Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac).
Delirious and dying, Victor warns that his pursuer still roams the ice, searching for him, and will stop at nothing to reach the ship.
From his bed below deck, Victor begins to recount the events that led him there. His pursuit of the science of bringing life back to the dead began as both rebellion and obsession—born of his emotionally abusive father and the devastating loss of his beloved mother, whose death he could not accept. At university, his reckless experiments got him expelled for the sheer madness of his work. Seeing potential, Victor is approached by the charismatic Baron Von Seyfried (Christoph Waltz), who offers him funding and a secluded castle laboratory. The Baron is also the uncle of Elizabeth (Mia Goth), who is engaged to Victor’s brother, William.
Through sleepless nights and storms, Victor stitched together a body from the remains of the dead and harnessed lightning itself to give it life. The instant the creature (Jacob Elordi) opened its eyes, Victor felt not pride but horror. His creation was an “imbecile.” He decides to kill the creature by burning down the castle, but the creature survives, looking for Victor…but for revenge?
FRANKENSTEIN. Jacob Elordi as The Creature in Frankenstein. Cr. Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2025.
“Elizabeth and the creature share a haunting bond born from the wreckage of Victor’s ambition.”
Frankenstein is one of the best movies of the year, thanks to the vision of its director, Guillermo del Toro. Even in the North Pole, once the film began, I was dropped into the immersive world of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. From the ship stuck in ice, to the horrific experiments at university, to the castle and its lab, I’m sucked into this world.
The first half of the film tells the familiar story of Victor Frankenstein with brilliant clarity. In this version, Victor is driven by obsession, and Oscar Isaac nails the performance. He has to conquer death, and when he discovers the creature he made, he is obsessed with making things right.
The turn that Del Toro takes in this version is in the third chapter, where the story is now told from the creature’s perspective. We follow his journey from the moment Victor tries to destroy him in the castle to meeting the old man and the girl, and making the final demand to Victor. The standout performance in this movie comes from Jacob Elordi as the creature. Unlike other productions, Del Toro finds the visual balance between creature and man. Elordi then runs with it, giving us the balance between a menace and a kind and thoughtful soul.
Ultimately, Frankenstein is a visual feast that captures what I think are the themes Mary Shelley was aiming for in the tale, sans the Hollywood theatrics. The story is more poetic than narrative in the end. We’ll see you at the Oscars.
"…will break your heart before it chills your bones."
Get outa here! Frankenstein is a comic book rendering of a cliched and tired daddy movie. Sentimental and had the message of a Hallmark movie. I’ve had better makeup on Halloween. The backstory was boring and pretentious and unnecessary. Show a room full of limbs is not drama nor terror. It meandered on and the monster seemed like he belonged in an adoption house. Oh my, so disappointed. I’ll watch the original a thousand times before I revisit this chic monster.