Mind on Fire Books

I was on the couch, the moment the clock ticked over to the film’s first Friday on Netflix, when I watched Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. The adaptation of Frankenstein had been an unusually personal viewing for me. Just two weeks prior, I’d been immersed in a stage production of the classic tale. Thus, the emotional arc of Victor and his Creature was still fresh, still burning. To have this massive, gothic adaptation drop right after was a coincidence too perfect to ignore. It felt like a kind of literary serendipity.

And I’m here to tell you, it delivered. I’m scoring it a 4.5 out of 5 coffee mugs.

Yet, when I cross-reference my own gut reaction with the public discourse, a fascinating conversation emerges. The collective voice says del Toro has delivered a “visual feast”—and on that, we are all in agreement. The cinematography, the precise, moody lighting, the angles and movements—it was flawless. This is a movie built on the feeling of a novel, transforming Mary Shelley’s sprawling 1818 tragedy into an operatic canvas of the Victorian era. Specifically, it is set during the Crimean War in the 1850s. This setting provides Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) his gruesome bounty of bodies.

But the conversation gets interesting when we discuss the soul of the film: The Creature.

The Creature as a Superhuman, not a Simple Monster

My favorite element of the film, and one that many critics lauded, was the performance by Jacob Elordi. Where previous adaptations often leaned into the purely monstrous or the philosophically tormented, del Toro gave us something else: the Superhuman Tragedian.

The Creature’s visceral strength—the way he moves, fights wolves, and possesses that incredible, almost X-Men-like raw power—was cool without ever feeling cheap or “extra.” It’s a core component that speaks directly to the sci-fi undercurrent of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (subtitled The Modern Prometheus). The film gives the Creature a physical presence that demands awe. It reminds us he is not just a failed experiment, but a successful act of creation. Victor’s moral blindness cannot handle this.

This Creature’s tragedy, then, is that his power isolates him further. The consensus agrees that Elordi captures the “deep longing for connection” and essential pathos of the character.

The Frankenstein Pacing Debate: Is it a Flaw or a Feature?

Here is where my review diverges from some critical takes. My research shows a consistent critique: the film is “overstuffed” and suffers from a “clunky” 150-minute runtime. A few reviewers suggest del Toro tried to cram too much of Frankenstein in.

But I loved the pacing.

Perhaps because my mind was already connected to the narrative and characters, I experienced the film’s methodical nature as a grand, deliberate march toward tragedy. It was not a drag. Del Toro isn’t rushing toward cheap scares; instead, he’s meticulously laying out the moral and philosophical groundwork of Shelley’s novel. He allows the dread to accumulate.

This difference in perception gets to the core of what del Toro was trying to achieve. As the director himself reflected on his ultimate themes: “Imperfection is the condition of life… I think the movie makes peace with that and forgiveness and what it is to be human, which is to be capable of seeing the other.”

The film takes its time because it is less a horror story and more an epic examination of that “condition of life”—the raw, painful, beautiful imperfection of being.

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A Stellar Adaptation that Honors the Text

For any writer who has struggled with the “paperback-to-movie” translation, del Toro’s effort here is truly stellar. It doesn’t skew too far from Frankenstein; it honors it by placing a modern, unflinching lens on its core ideas.

Mary Shelley, an author whose work (like The Last Man) consistently explores visceral transformations, folklore, and the unpredictable nature of scientific ambition, would, I believe, be proud. This is a version of Frankenstein for our age. It reflects on the tragedy that unfolds when a creator abandons their responsibility to the thing they brought into the world.

And speaking of transformations—this film, in its gorgeous, terrifying commitment to flesh and philosophy, is a perfect segment into the kind of themes I’ve been exploring in my upcoming collection. The Creature’s journey—the unbidden transformation, the grappling with a new, terrifying reality—is central to the sci-fi, eco-horror, and transformation narratives within “Folklore and Flesh.”

If del Toro’s Frankenstein resonated with you, if the cinematic rendering of a beautiful, terrifying change of flesh and fate hit you right in the gut, then I highly recommend signing up for updates on “Folklore and Flesh,” available for pre-order on November 20th.

Because, as del Toro shows us, the monsters we create often have the most beautiful, most heartbreaking stories to tell. And those are the stories worth reading.

Thank you for visiting with me. For more Reviews or Literature related content, visit my blog at The Ritual. Copyright Mind on Fire Books.