Tripwire Reviews Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein

The Monster Within?

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows reviews Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, out for a limited time in cinemas in the UK and US and coming to Netflix on 7 November…

Frankenstein
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Stars: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Christoph Waltz, Mia Goth, Charles Dance

Frankenstein, del Toro’s latest horror epic, is an inevitable film when you look at the Oscar winning director’s oeuvre so far.
Clocking in at two and a half hours long, this latest adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel sees Issac as Victor Frankenstein, a scientist hell-bent on proving that science can defeat nature and bring people back from the dead. Waltz is his wealthy patron Harlander, a man with an ulterior motive for his support while Goth is his love Elizabeth, an affair that of course is doomed to fail and Elordi plays the doctor’s tragic creation.
Frankenstein is a story that has been adapted many times on the big screen: from Whale’s primitive 1931 black and white iteration with Boris Karloff to Hammer’s technicolor extravaganza with Peter Cushing as the misguided scientist in 1957 (The Curse Of Frankenstein) and Mel Brooks’ outlandishly over the top but brilliantly delineated Young Frankenstein back in 1974, each version has brought something fresh and new to proceedings. Even 1994’s misconceived Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein tried unsuccessfully to attempt to do something different with such a familiar tale.
Del Toro’s tale opens with the creature searching for his creator who has fled to the Arctic and then flashes back to give the viewer the whole story of his genesis and creation. It’s a powerful opening with the director using the bleakness of the setting to draw us in.
Charles Dance plays the scientist’s fearsomely cold and austere father, a figure who plays a major role in shaping Victor’s path in life. He lends a little extra gravitas to the film in its early part too.
Elordi plays a figure who is vulnerable and at his core truly human, encapsulating a troubled humanity. Sequences like the one where the creature befriend a blind man, played by David Bradley, are powerful moments of emotion, showing that Frankenstein’s creation is capable of human interaction albeit with an inevitably tragic conclusion. Shelley’s book was designed as a salutary warning about man interfering with nature and the potential repercussions caused and Del Toro’s film comes closes to offering a big screen translation of Shelley’s story.

Isaac plays a man driven and obsessed with one quest in life with warmth and who eventually finds redemption after all of the damage and chaos he has created.
There is chemistry between Victor and Elizabeth (Goth), a love affair doomed by the scientist’s dangerous obsessions.

Mike Hill, who brought Frankenstein to life, has created a patchwork man, a very effective portrayal of the doctor’s tragic figure.
There is a lyrical inevitability that runs throughout del Toro’s film, a sense that Frankenstein’s creation will never truly find peace although he does come close at the film’s conclusion.
In terms of its look, del Toro’s Frankenstein is a sweeping gothic epic, bringing the Victorian world to rich life with true attention to detail. Costumes lend an extra air of onscreen grand guignol while, as expected, the scenes where the doctor sources the parts for his ungodly experiments are suitably graphic and visceral. He also uses the film’s accelerated unreality in places to create a truly immersive experience for the viewer, adding to the fable-like feeling that del Toro has invested in the film throughout.Also, the director has admitted that Berni Wrightson’s adaptation of Shelley’s book has played its part in shaping del Toro’s approach to bringing the fictional world to the big screen.

He sets out his stall for this film with the Arctic opener and doesn’t take his foot off the pedal throughout. There is a quiet power combined with a palpable sense of dread throughout the film.
Del Toro is a director with a uniquely impressive body of work, a man with a vision who has brought some of the most memorable figures to horrific life on the big screen. Frankenstein is a worthy addition to his canon, a wonderfully damaged presence, and del Toro’s version of Shelley’s book adds something different to the cinematic Frankenstein library while still feeling like a faithful retelling of the source material. It feels bold and ambitious, playing to the filmmaker’s greatest strengths. Twenty-four years after del Toro’s debut with Cronos, Frankenstein is the work of a director who still has so much to offer with his films and who has left a truly remarkable body of work behind him.

JOEL MEADOWS

Frankenstein is in UK and US cinemas now and on Netflix from 7 November.