Dir. Guillermo del Toro | Now Streaming on Netflix | Rating: 5/5

Quintessential Del Toro, from storytelling to cinematography to voice. As a fan of his work, this was a home run. It holds true “enough” to the source material, while playing in to some of the pop culture iconography we’ve come to know.

Frankenstein is a story that was made to be retold through Del Toro’s keen love of the monstrous and outcasted. There really is nothing like a Del Toro monster and the way they masterfully foil humanity, in all its beauties and disgraces. This has never been truer than how it is seen in Frankenstein. After only seeing Jacob Elordi in Euphoria and Saltburn, I am so impressed with his range in this.

The world building of this film is outstanding, with each detail of the sets and costuming adding to the gothic atmosphere. The final frames of The Creature are some of the most stunning and poignant of recent memory.

Pure horror elements often get lost in Del Toro’s fantasy styling, but Frankenstein delivers on the scares, with a measurable amount of violence, gore, and body horror.

A weakness is that the film is quite long, elements could’ve been shortened or left out for the sake of brevity, but I didn’t find myself checking the clock. The unravelling story and character development is so entrancing. The carefully placed parallels as we navigate the two points of view are smart and thought provoking.

I cried several times watching this. Del Toro’s greatest gift to this genre is his ability to breathe empathy into darkness and urge audiences to look inward. Frankenstein is a story of humanity’s seeming unending quest for power, and the lengths we must actively go to preserve kindness, compassion, and empathy.

“What makes a monster, and what makes a man?” is a quote from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a sister story to Frankenstein in many ways. I can’t help but think how well this captures the essence of this film (and how badly I want Del Toro to do a retelling of Hunchback).

One of Del Toro’s finest and a heavy hitter for 2025’s releases.

Know Before You Watch: Death, body horror, gore, animal death.