“It’s Alive — and It’s a Masterpiece”: Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’ With Jacob Elordi Is a Fever-Dream Epic That Turns Horror Into Heartbreak, Science Into Sin, and the Monster Into the Most Human Soul You’ll See All Year
“It’s Alive — and It’s a Masterpiece”: Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’ With Jacob Elordi Is a Fever-Dream Epic That Turns Horror Into Heartbreak, Science Into Sin, and the Monster Into the Most Human Soul You’ll See All Year
Some films crawl under your skin. Others break your heart. And then there are those rare, once-in-a-decade experiences that do both — the kind of movies that feel less like fiction and more like a dark prayer whispered to cinema itself. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is one of those.
After years of anticipation and whispers through film festivals, Frankenstein — del Toro’s reimagining of Mary Shelley’s timeless tale — finally lurches into cinemas this Friday before streaming on Netflix in early November. I was one of the lucky few who caught its premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, and I can say without hesitation: this isn’t just the director’s most breathtaking work — it’s his most soul-shattering, romantic, and spiritually violent film yet.
Imagine Pan’s Labyrinth colliding headfirst with Blade Runner in the candlelight of a Gothic cathedral — and you’ll only be halfway there.
A Monster Reborn: The Cast That Bleeds Emotion
Only Guillermo del Toro could assemble a cast this extraordinary — and then push them all into emotional overdrive.
At its center stands Oscar Isaac, electrifying as Victor Frankenstein, the brilliant, broken scientist consumed by the dream of conquering death. Isaac doesn’t just play Frankenstein — he dissects him. Every glance, every whispered line of dialogue carries both genius and guilt, as if the man himself is trying to sew together the pieces of his own fragmented soul.
But it’s Mia Goth, the undisputed queen of modern horror, who gives the film its aching heart — or rather, hearts. In a deliriously daring move, Goth plays two roles: Victor’s mother, Claire Frankenstein, and his sister-in-law (and secret muse), Elizabeth Lavenza. It’s a creative choice that could’ve easily collapsed into melodrama, but in Goth’s hands it becomes something transcendent — a performance about obsession, love, and the cyclical nature of creation itself. She’s both haunting and human, like a ghost who’s aware of her own myth.
And then there’s Jacob Elordi — the revelation of the film. Known for Euphoria and Saltburn, Elordi’s transformation into the Creature is the stuff of legend. Forget the lumbering monster stitched from clichés — this is a creation both horrifying and heartbreakingly tender. Elordi’s performance, a mosaic of physical pain and emotional yearning, turns the Creature into something nearly divine. When he first opens his eyes, gasping like a newborn, you don’t recoil — you ache.
It’s easily the best performance of Elordi’s career and the kind of turn that makes stars immortal. Critics have already called it “career-defining,” but that’s too small a phrase. It’s epoch-defining — a reminder that empathy is the rarest form of courage.
A Vision Only Del Toro Could Imagine
Del Toro has always been the cinema’s great dreamer — a man who turns monsters into metaphors and metaphors into miracles. But with Frankenstein, he reaches a new level of artistry.
Yes, it’s gorgeous — every frame feels painted, every shadow alive. But beauty here isn’t decoration; it’s part of the storytelling. The Frankenstein estate is rendered like a decaying cathedral of ambition — its marble halls glowing with candlelight, its corridors echoing with guilt. The lab, perched high in a lonely tower, hums with the electricity of madness.
The production design, by del Toro’s longtime collaborator Tamara Deverell, is jaw-dropping. You can practically smell the formaldehyde in the air, feel the chill of lightning reflected in glass beakers. Every costume, especially Mia Goth’s sprawling gowns, tells a silent story — of wealth, decay, and the burden of beauty. The colors are impossible to forget: the ghostly whites of the morgue, the bruised blues of moonlight, the burning amber of creation itself.
Unlike most Netflix productions, which often carry a digital sheen, this film pulses with cinematic texture — grain, grit, and grandeur. It’s both intimate and operatic, as if del Toro shot it on the edge of a dream.
The Heart of the Monster
At its core, Frankenstein isn’t about science or death — it’s about the unbearable weight of love.
Del Toro reimagines Shelley’s story not as a tale of horror, but as a tragedy of loneliness — the yearning to be seen, touched, remembered. Victor Frankenstein isn’t just a mad scientist; he’s an artist desperate to create meaning in a godless world. And his Creature isn’t a villain, but a mirror — the physical embodiment of every abandoned dream, every unspoken grief.
Jacob Elordi’s performance distills that heartbreak perfectly. His Creature moves through the world like a lost child — curious, gentle, and doomed by his maker’s shame. In one devastating sequence, he gazes at his reflection for the first time, reaching toward it as if to touch the soul he was never meant to have. It’s not a scream that follows, but a sob — quiet, human, infinite.
In that moment, del Toro doesn’t just retell Mary Shelley’s tale. He completes it.
Critics and Cinephiles Are Already Worshipping It
Even before its wide release, Frankenstein has set film circles ablaze. Early screenings at BFI prompted a wave of euphoric reactions on Letterboxd and social media. One reviewer called it “del Toro’s magnum opus fairy tale — the culmination of everything he’s ever loved about monsters.” Another wrote, “Jacob Elordi will make you cry for the thing you’ve feared your whole life.”
Comparisons to Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water are inevitable, but what’s remarkable is how Frankenstein feels bigger — not in scale, but in spirit. It’s the work of an artist confronting mortality head-on, with a trembling hand and a full heart.
Fans have also pointed out del Toro’s recurring theme of “beautiful tragedy” — the idea that love and horror are two halves of the same emotion. And in Frankenstein, that concept reaches its purest, most poetic form.
Why You Need to See It — and Feel It
There are films you watch. And then there are films you experience. Frankenstein belongs to the latter category — a full-body, full-soul immersion that will leave you shaken, silent, and strangely hopeful.
It’s not just del Toro’s best film — it’s his most personal confession. A story about creation and consequence, faith and failure, and the ache of being alive in a world that doesn’t always want you.
The film asks, quietly but insistently: Who is the real monster — the one who makes life, or the one who refuses to love it once it’s made?
By the time the Creature opens his eyes, and that first fragile breath fills the theater, you’ll know the answer. You’ll feel it in your chest, in your bones, in that strange, haunted space between fear and tenderness that only del Toro knows how to conjure.
Because Frankenstein isn’t just alive.
It’s eternal.
Frankenstein opens in cinemas on Friday, October 17, and begins streaming on Netflix November 7. Bring tissues, brace your heart, and prepare to fall in love with the monster.