Review: "Frankenstein"

From the days I was a kid, it was Frankenstein, not Godzilla, who was the King of the Monsters. 

Godzilla might have been bigger, but nothing was as terrifying as Frankenstein, or more accurately Frankenstein’s monster as portrayed by Boris Karloff in James Whale’s 1931, black-and-white, horror film classic.

His iconic face, by make-up artist Jack P. Pierce, was the stuff nightmares are made of.  94 years later, that same face currently appears in a series of Frankenstein-themed Xfinity TV commercials.  It’s a face that will never die.

The original “Frankenstein” was a tough act to follow, though some critics argue that the best Karloff Frankenstein movie was the “Bride of Frankenstein” sequel made in 1935, co-starring Elsa Lanchester.

There have been dozens of Frankenstein remakes and spin-offs but the stop-the-presses announcement that acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro was making his version of the story caught my interest. I’m a big fan of his strange, stylish body of work that includes movies like “Hellboy” (2004), “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006) and “The Shape of Water” (2017). He was more than capable of delivering a serious retelling of a classic tale.

All that is evident in the opening scenes of the movie which establish a prelude to the story. A wooden sailing ship is hopelessly trapped in the ice, en route to the North Pole. The sailors see an explosion in the distance one night, rescue a wounded, lone survivor (Victor Frankenstein played by Oscar Isaac) and encounter a menacing superhuman creature who can’t be killed. A gory, gruesome battle can’t stop it. 

Their attempt to drown the creature fails. As in movies like “Alien” (1979) they are faced with an indestructible, unstoppable evil that they are unable to escape.

Del Toro’s "Frankenstein" explores new story material, offering the backstory of the young Victor Frankenstein, a coddled young, mama’s boy with an Oedipal complex, a brilliant, but sadistically abusive father and a younger brother who is the apple of daddy’s eye.  Following the tragic loss of his mother, Victor vows to eradicate death and embarks on a dark, disturbing journey involving corpses and bizarre medical experiments.

An early demonstration of his work to his professors and colleagues looks like a scene from “Re-Animator” (1985) with a grotesque torso being zapped to life in a lecture hall in a squeamish show and tell. 

Failing to impress the medical community, he attracts the interest and unlimited financial support of a man (Christoph Waltz) who states that he will someday ask the scientist for a favor in exchange for his aid. It, of course turns into a major, dramatic story twist later in the film. No spoilers. 

“Frankenstein” is initially told from Victor Frankenstein’s point of view, but is then brilliantly re-told from the perspective of The Creature, played by Jacob Elordi. He bears little resemblance to Karloff’s monster. 

True to form, del Toro presents his own version of the monster, a towering, powerful presence wearing only a loin cloth. His stunning, athletic physique is a patchwork  of surgical scars.  His demeanor is that of a child—a mix of purity and innocence.

Del Toro’s monsters are often misunderstood characters yearning for love and affection.  That is the case here.  As was true in the 1931 version of the story, The Creature is in search of a friend. What he encounters along the way is fear, rage and hostility.

While Karloff’s monster would only grunt and groan a few simple words, del Toro’s Creature learns to read and speak fluently, thanks to the kindness of a reclusive old, blind man he meets. He becomes self-aware and self-consuming filled with hate, when he realizes that his creator has given him a curse, in the form of physical immortality-- damnation to an eternal hell of loneliness and rejection. 

This Frankenstein story is one of revenge and reconciliation. It is a soul-searching, psychologically complex tale that feels like a collaboration between Sigmund Freud and William Shakespeare (in one scene, a character dramatically delivers dialog while holding a skull in a blatant reference to Hamlet).

Del Toro takes the Frankenstein tale and makes it his own, visually and thematically. He adds characters and plot lines and omits elements like Victor Frankenstein’s trusty laboratory assistant Fritz (later re-named Igor) and the climactic mob of torch bearing villagers.

He stitches together an entertaining, engrossing take on a familiar tale, occasionally grave robbing elements from earlier pieces of literature and cinema. The movie’s shortcomings are its length (2h 29m) and the lack of slickness you might expect from a del Toro movie. It is a Netflix production with a limited theatrical run.

That said, “Frankenstein” is a movie well worth seeing this Halloween. It is gory and creepy as well as being thoughtful and sensitive. To his credit, del Toro makes all that happen in the same movie. He’s a director who searches for the humanity in outcast creatures, monsters who often only have the capacity to make us scream. 

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is rated R.