The Dream Project That Refused to Die.
Guillermo del Toro has spent most of his career circling monsters. Sketching them. Studying them. Humanising them. But Frankenstein wasn’t just another creature in his catalogue — it was the one that got away. For almost thirty years, this story lived in drafts, doodles, studio meetings, and a mental vault only he could open. And now, in 2025, the vault is wide open. The monster lives. And it’s streaming on Netflix, where millions are discovering the film del Toro once thought he’d never get to make.
This is the rare project where you can feel every year of longing baked into the frame. It’s the kind of movie that doesn’t just show you a world — it pulls you into the dark, holds you by the collar, and whispers: “This is what it looked like inside my head the whole time.”
The Monster That Followed Him Across Decades
Del Toro didn’t start this film in 2023. Not even close. The earliest versions of Frankenstein date back to the late ’90s and early 2000s, when he was still a rising gothic nerd with a growing cult fanbase. Studios flirted with the idea. Scripts were drafted. Doug Jones was an early favourite to play the Creature. But timing and Hollywood risk-aversion kept shutting the doors.
Most filmmakers move on after a decade of development hell. Del Toro doubled down. He kept collecting references, artwork, anatomical studies — whole folders dedicated to emotional beats the Creature would experience long before an actor was even cast. In interviews, he’s described Frankenstein as “the story I’ve lived with longer than any other.” You feel that weight as soon as the film begins. It’s not a re-imagining. It’s an exorcism.
The break finally came after Pinocchio — his Oscar-winning stop-motion triumph — proved he could deliver a global streaming phenomenon. Netflix greenlit Frankenstein almost instantly. What followed was the kind of greenlight creative people dream about: big budget, artistic freedom, zero interference, and the license to make something operatic.
Casting That Rewired the Dynamic
Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein was the first sign del Toro wasn’t making a traditional gothic adaptation. Isaac brings this fierce, meticulous energy — the kind of man who could out-stare a thunderstorm if he had to. His Victor is brilliant, obsessive, brittle, and already halfway broken before the monster ever rises. It’s a performance that refuses to let Victor off the hook, even when he tries to justify every wound he creates.
Then there’s Jacob Elordi. Yes, everyone knew he had the height. Yes, everyone knew he had presence. But no one quite expected this. Elordi’s Creature isn’t a lumbering brute. He’s fear and wonder stitched together. Hurt and curiosity wrestling inside the same frame. There’s a sadness in him that feels older than the story itself.
Some critics have called it the best work of his career so far — the moment he stops being “the guy from Euphoria” and becomes an actor people study.
Together, Isaac and Elordi feel like mirror shards reflecting different kinds of loneliness. Their scenes hit like emotional collisions: quiet, brutal, strangely tender.
The Reviews Are Spicy — And That’s a Good Thing
A movie this personal was never going to land with light consensus. And the early critical spread has been energetic.
Some reviewers are calling it “a visual cathedral,” praising the production design, the fog-slicked landscapes, the meticulous costuming that feels touched by candlelight. Others are more sceptical, claiming the themes wobble under the weight of del Toro’s maximalism. But even the harsher reviews point to the same facts: the film looks unbelievable, the performances have teeth, and the emotional swings hit hard.
One particularly sharp review said the movie feels like “a fairytale for the broken.” Another argued it was “too romantic for horror, too brutal for a family tragedy, and too sincere to belong to any one genre.”
In other words: del Toro made exactly what he wanted. And people are talking about it. Loudly.
A Gothic World Built With Real Hands
In an era where half the big-budget movies feel like beige CGI soup, del Toro went the opposite direction. He built physical sets. Actual corridors. Tangible environments you could run a hand across and feel stories embedded in the walls. He treated the architecture like a second cast.
This grounding gives the film its emotional weight. The Creature doesn’t wander through digital nothingness — he moves through cold stone, muddy ground, candlelit rooms where the shadows feel alive. The world aches alongside him.
The cinematography leans into thick atmosphere: long takes where the silence speaks, frames where the colours feel pulled from oil paintings. It’s romantic, tragic, and meticulously handmade in a way few streaming films dare to be.
The Emotional Engine: A Story About Outsiders
Del Toro has always made movies for the outsiders — the lonely, the misunderstood, the ones who don’t fit the mold — and Frankenstein is his manifesto. The film reframes the Creature not as a monster but as a consequence, a question no one wanted to answer, a being built without a place to belong.
Elordi plays him with this raw, searching quality, like someone trying to understand a world that refuses to understand him back. His first moments of consciousness are some of the most affecting in the entire film — confused, frightened, gentle, overwhelmed.
You walk away wondering who the real monster is. Del Toro isn’t subtle about it. And he shouldn’t be.
Why You Need to Watch It Tonight
It seems studios don’t get to make movies like this anymore. Not in the era of risk-averse franchises. Not on streaming platforms obsessed with retention curves.
Del Toro somehow broke the rules.
This is why you should give it your night:
It’s a genuine event
You know how rare that is on streaming. When something feels handcrafted, not churned?
The performances hit harder than expected
Isaac and Elordi aren’t just good. They’re magnetic.
It mirrors the anxieties of 2025
Playing god. Creating life. Living with the consequences. It all lands differently in the age of AI, biotech, and algorithmic everything.
It rewards real attention
Put the phone down. Let the world swallow you.
It’s what del Toro was born to make
Some films feel like assignments. This one feels like destiny.