Imagine a monster. Now ask: Why is it a monster?
This question, along with others, is at the heart of the new “Frankenstein” movie released in theaters on Oct. 17 and available to stream on Netflix on Nov. 7. Directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Jacob Elordi as The Creature, Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Mia Goth as Elizabeth Harlander, the film is a reimagining of the Mary Shelley classic that gave birth to the genre of science fiction.
I dismissed the movie at first. This was nowhere near the first book-to-film adaptation of “Frankenstein,” and I didn’t think that there could be anything new or different about this one. I chose to not see it in theaters, nor did I choose to watch it when it first came out on Netflix. It was only in mid November that I began hearing overwhelmingly positive reviews about the movie, and I decided that I would give it a chance and see if it lived up to the hype. I can now confidently say that I deeply regret not taking the chance to watch it in theaters because it is one of the most moving and hauntingly beautiful movies I’ve ever seen.
The film did deviate from the book in ways that I didn’t expect, such as Henry Clerval, Victor’s best friend, not being mentioned in the movie at all and Victor’s father being abusive when he is not described as such in the novel. I thought these changes would alter the story too much and cause a large disconnect from the original storyline, but I was wrong. Shelley’s novel raised questions we’re still debating today, from AI to bioengineering to the ethics of creating life through technology. She explored responsibility, abandonment and what happens when human ambition goes too far, as well as the deep themes of creation and rejection, and del Toro masterfully executed changes to the plot while still keeping true to these original messages of the book in a way that didn’t feel lacking or forced.
The cinematography of the film is gorgeous as well, and it allows for deep analysis that add to the aforementioned pre-existing themes of the novel. For example, one of the prominent scenes of the movie is when the Creature is being brought to life through electricity conducted through lightning rods, and those rods visually echo speculums in a way that fits too neatly into the story’s reoccupation with violated bodies, lost autonomy and the perversion of creation to be a coincidence.
The speculum is an instrument that embodies both coldness and intrusion; a device invented by man, used historically to assert control over women’s health, often through pain, dismissal and dehumanization. It forces the body open in a way that feels unnatural, clinical and deeply asymmetrical in power. To frame Frankenstein’s “birth” through tools that resemble that history adds a new layer of commentary. It ties the creature’s creation to a tradition of medical violence, of bodies treated as experiments rather than people, of life brought forth through domination instead of care. It becomes a visual metaphor for how creation, when stripped of empathy, mirrors the worst parts of the real world: patriarchal medicine, the brutalization of the vulnerable, and the arrogance of those who believe they have the right to open someone up simply because they can.
Del Toro’s imagery lets the Creature’s origin story carry that echo of violence. Victor isn’t just making life; he’s reenacting the lineage of bodily control. The fact that the Creature is “born” through these cold, speculum-like mechanisms reinforces one of the darkest truths in the story: that something brought into the world through violation can’t help but inherit its pain. All of this comes from the analysis of just one scene from the entire two and a half hour-long movie, which is a clear demonstration of del Toro’s genius and thoughtfulness regarding the amplification of the original themes of the book.
The original novel was revolutionary, and this film is no different; it emphasizes that “Frankenstein” isn’t just a story about a monster. It’s about the hubris of man, the ache of being misunderstood, the hunger to belong and the quiet courage it takes to forgive the world for not loving you back.
