Venice Film Festival 2025, Frankenstein Film Review

While Frankenstein's creature has been overexploited in cinema, the story of his creator hasn't, which director Guillermo del Toro recalibrates to meet the expectations of younger audiences. This is how the Mexican filmmaker's latest work presents itself, steeped in nostalgia for Mary Shelley's original 1816 novel, yet driven by the need to reinvent it with cutting-edge CGI special effects.

The film opens with Frankenstein's monster (Jacob Elordi) boarding a ship trapped in ice, killing sailors by hurling them meters away as if he were a comic book hero, absorbing gunshots while his wounds mysteriously heal. He utters just one word: "Victor" – his creator, Victor Frankenstein – a charismatic Oscar Isaac – whom he pursues to resolve some unknown conflict. The narrative then shifts backward, which proves to be the film's most frustrating aspect, as it dampens its momentum. We witness Victor's ambition to resurrect the dead, before retreating further into his childhood, with his physician father and mother who may have been killed by her spouse.

If bodily deformity, portrayed in various facets – as in The Shape of Water – is an obsession for the director, it becomes even more pronounced when he finds fertile material to give it form. Between disemboweled corpses, assembled hearts and limbs, and dripping blood, viewers often feel transported to a butcher's shop: a taste for the grotesque that clearly caters to the platform for which the film is destined. Only in the final act does the story find its composure, when events unfold from the monster's perspective as he yearns for a woman of his own. As Frankenstein learns to forgive his creator for assembling him, Del Toro's intention becomes clear: to reconstruct the original story while conveying its underlying theme – the conflicted love between a son and his father.