Since its release two centuries ago, Mary Shelleyâs Frankenstein has suffered through 433 adaptations, the most recent of which was Guillermo del Toroâs American Gothic film, released on the 17th of October 2025. There are many notable differences between the original novel and this adaptation: changes as notable as the exclusion of the protagonistâs best friend â Henry Clerval â and a change of time period from 1818 to 1853-1856, during the Crimean War, a time of extreme political turmoil and suffering. The film is much less claustrophobic and psychologically tense than the novel, where the extent of Victorâs experiments takes place in the tiny Bavarian apartment he shuts himself up in, driving him slowly insane. In the film, Victor is surrounded by his brother William, his love interest, Elizabeth, and his financial enabler, Harlander, and he carries out his experiments in a classically Gothic tower. Although not isolated in this adaptation, Victor Frankenstein seems ever more the pathetic loser, aged up from his early 20s to late 40s.
Opening with a dramatic, suspense-filled portrayal of the novelâs prelude, the film sets itself up as a partial horror, presenting the Creature as a violent beast. The main point of this adaptation, though, seems to be to humanise the Creature into something pitiful, creating sympathy in the face of Victorâs blatant disregard for his âsonâ. This was an interesting choice that did not necessarily satisfy fans of the book, introducing more issues than the film could handle as del Toro attempted to rewrite the Creatureâs entire narrative. Jacob Elordiâs portrayal of the creature learns and searches for connection, experiencing pleasure and pain in the same ways an infant would. Initially, he looks for nothing but love and guidance from his creator, though he becomes increasingly aggressive as he is met with nothing but abuse. Contrasting with the book where Victor immediately abandons the Creature after its creation in disgust, Victor stays and attempts to play a paternal role towards the Creature and teach it language.Â
Victor proves to be stuck in a familial cycle of abuse, acting the same impatient and unaffectionate father as his own. Although the original novel angles somewhat more for sympathy for Victor, del Toroâs film takes the opposite angle, positioning Victor as a deranged villain from the beginning. Victor has a blatant disregard for human life, rarely paying attention to his fatherâs lessons on anatomy until it fuels his thirst for revenge on death itself for taking his mother from him. Victor has blood on his hands from the very beginning, his motherâs bloody handprints staining his white shirt and face as a child. A red motif consistently appearing in his otherwise black-and-white costuming, from a red cravat tied to his white collar as a child to the red gloves he dons whilst climbing the tower to fire up the electricity to bring the Creature to life. Victor is haunted by disturbing images of a âDark Angelâ, a red, animated statue surrounded by flames. The filmâs colour scheme â especially in the beginning â is largely red, white and black, with red being the colour of blood, fire, and Victorâs late mother. She wears a strikingly contrasting red dress and veil in her first scene, while Victor wears black, and the servants wear white. Sitting down at the dinner table with her family, her husband forces her to eat a food that causes red to drip from the corner of her mouth, red and blood being a continued motif for her character, which foreshadows her death. Perhaps, the Dark Angel could be interpreted as Victorâs scientific ambitions being perverted into a bloodthirst for revenge. One could argue, in fact, that the Creature itself is intended to be Victorâs dark reflection; when he comes back to visit Victor, del Toro includes a shot of the Creature standing behind Victor in the mirror.
Interestingly, del Toro made the rather Freudian choice of having Mia Goth play both Victorâs mother and his love interest, Elizabeth. Just as Victor cherishes having his mother to himself, he attempts to keep Elizabeth as his own. This parallels a passage from the novel, where Victor dreams of kissing Elizabeth, only for her to transform into his dead motherâs corpse. In the book, Elizabeth is Victorâs adoptive cousin, whom he later plans to marry. However, in this film, Elizabeth is introduced as Victorâs brother Williamâs entrancing fiancĂ©e, obsessed with science and insects. She is deeply connected to nature, desiring something beyond the natural world and embodying a strong sense of the feminine in amongst the Gothic gore of Frankenstein. Her costuming is extremely opulent, vibrant and floaty, giving her a rather ethereal effect onscreen. In her final scenes, she wears a dramatically angelic wedding dress that contrasts beautifully with her long auburn hair, the ribbon bodice reflective of the Creatureâs costume and paying homage to the costume design from The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Red, droplet-shaped beads hang around her neck like blood, foreshadowing her impending demise. Interestingly, even the trajectory of this is changed – in the book, she is brutally raped and murdered by the Creature alongside William in order to send Victor into alienated despair. In this adaptation, consistent with the somewhat controversial humanisation of the Creature, there is no rape scene, and it is actually Victor who shoots Elizabeth as he aims for the Creature. In typical Gothic imagery, blood blooms across the pure white of Elizabethâs dress whilst the Creature carries her bridal-style through the snowy landscape to lay her to rest in a sunlit cave.
Although I found this film incredibly enjoyable and worthy of a 4 1â2 star rating on Letterboxd, with its breathtaking costuming and strikingly classically Gothic cinematography, it was not a particularly accurate adaptation of the novel itself. My main issue with the film was its ending, where the Creature somehow forgives Victor for playing God in creating him, abusing him and then abandoning him with no companion despite his gentle nature. As Victor lies on his deathbed, he shows regret and begs his âsonâ for forgiveness, which seems to contrast with the entire rest of the film. The Creature grants Victor this, gently cradling his hand as he passes away peacefully. The Creature then quite literally walks off into the sunset for the filmâs conclusion, which I found to be a rather inaccurate and anticlimactic ending. It seemed too different from the book and not very probable, although it evidently contributed to the sympathetic depiction of the Creature. However, perhaps the filmâs difference from the book should not be a point of contention, and a modern translation of this piece of media should be praised as art outside of its being an adaptation. Personally, Iâm rather grounded in the traditional attitude of wanting adaptations to be as book-accurate as possible, but perhaps this is too-outdated of an opinion.
Editor: Lauren Harker