Frankenstein

3 more reviews

1. ›Frankenstein | Netflix Movie Review@josehany229d

   Today I want to talk to you about Guillermo del Toro's recent film “ Frankenstein”. I felt a need to see this movie, but without any expectations.

   Frankenstein is a film, or rather an adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus." As I mentioned before, it was recently released and has a runtime of 2 hours and 29 minutes.

   Hoy quiero hablarles de la reciente película de Frankenstein dirigida por Guillermo del Toro, tenía una necesidad de ver esta película pero sin expectativa alguna.

   Frankenstein es una película, mas bien una adaptación de la novela “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” de Mary Shelley. Como dije antes, se estrenó recientemente y tiene una duración de 2 horas y 29 minutos.

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   Let's talk about Frankenstein:

   We have Victor Frankenstein, a doctor and scientist who has dedicated his time to finding the secret of life after death, to rebirth, so to speak. He manages to create a "creature," a "monster," that doesn't satisfy him and doesn't fulfill his expectations, so he begins to feel a great revulsion toward it, toward the creature. Victor has realized that he made a mistake playing God.

   Hablemos de Frankenstein:

   Tenemos a Víctor Frankenstein, es un doctor y científico que ha dedicado su tiempo ha encontrar el secreto de la vida después de la muerte, al renacer, por así decirlo. Y logra crear una “criatura”, un “monstruo” que no le satisface y no cumple con sus deseos de lo que tenía previsto por lo que empieza a sentir un gran rechazo hacia él, hacia la criatura. Victor, se ha dado cuenta de que se ha equivocado jugando a ser Dios.

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   This is just a small part of what I could tell you about the film, although I also didn't mention that it is divided into two chapters. First, we have "Victor's Tale," where we learn everything from the scientist's point of view, but we also have "The Creature's Tale," where we complement it with the other part of the vision, the creature’s part.

   Esto siendo poco de lo que podría decirles de la película, aunque tampoco mencioné que se divide en dos capítulos tenemos primero a “Victor’s Tale”, donde sabremos todo desde el punto de vista del científico pero también tenemos “The Creature’s Tale” donde complementamos con la otra parte de la visión, la de la criatura.

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   I'm not very demanding when it comes to movies, so I've seen some less-than-positive reviews, but from my personal experience, I found the film to be more humanized, philosophical, and even quite sad. I particularly enjoyed it. Here we see how Victor, the creature's creator, handled his relationship with the creature; we see his feelings laid bare, even his profound guilt.

   On the other hand, it's truly a very gothic film in every aspect. The atmosphere and effects clearly define it; you can almost feel the coldness. This touch also makes the film feel more intense, as it already has some quite strong and violent scenes. If you prefer lighter fare, I wouldn't recommend it. Aside from that, I'd say it's a film I recommend you check out.

   No soy muy exigente con las películas, por lo que ya he visto algunas review no tan positivas pero desde mi experiencia personal me pareció que la película se siente más humanizada, filosófica y hasta muy triste, particularmente me ha gustado. Aquí vamos a ver como se manejaba la relación de Victor, el creador de la criatura, con la criatura, vemos sus sentimientos expuestos y hasta la gran culpa.

   Por otro lado, realmente es una película muy gótica en todos los aspectos, la ambientación y los efectos lo dejan bien marcado, puedes hasta sentir la frialdad. Además este toque también hace que la película se sienta más intensa que de por sí tiene escenas bastante fuertes y violentas que si te gustan las cosas mas ligeras no te la recomiendo para ti y fuera de esto, diría que es una obra que recomiendo puedan echarle un vistazo.

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2. ›Frankenstein@steemychicken1232d

   Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is not merely a gothic tale or a philosophical allegory. It is a work born from the grief of a nineteen-year-old woman who had lost her child and, through unbearable pain, imagined what it would mean to bring the dead back to life. I believe this story remains alive within us precisely because it touches those raw nerves of horror and sorrow—it confronts dangerous knowledge, creation, loneliness and isolation, power and responsibility, our relationship with nature, and the moral accountability of both the individual and society.

   With that historical and biographical lens in mind, here’s my first observation: I found the film excessively stylized—at times more like a music video than a gothic thriller. It feels as though the dark grandeur of Shelley’s vision was sacrificed on the altar of digital excess. Personally, I think CGI should work invisibly, supporting practical effects just enough to make them believable, not drawing attention to itself. Instead of feeling as though I were in a dim room lit by flickering candles, surrounded by death and dread, I felt like I was watching a video-game cutscene.

   Shelley’s novel was radical because it dared to imagine male appropriation of motherhood at a time when she herself was mourning a lost child. Thinking of this, I feel the film silences the feminine voice that gave birth to the story—a true model of Romantic tension between scientific hubris and divine mystery. A meditation on power, creation, and their cost. That complexity is missing here. This Victor does not seek to *give birth* to life or to understand God; he wants to conquer death and dethrone Him. The creature ceases to mirror human anguish and becomes merely a vessel of masculine suffering. Ironic, isn’t it—given that the source material questions male dominion over life itself?

   I’ll go on with my complaints: the omission of Clerval—the moral voice of Victor in the novel—was disappointing, replaced instead by overused voice-over exposition. The characters of William and Elizabeth are diluted; he’s practically a prop, and she feels like a shadow of her written counterpart. And while I adore Christoph Waltz, his added character (not in the book) further weakens the story’s spine.

   Another unjustified change is the removal of the scene where the creature saves a drowning girl only to be shot by her father—a defining moment that exposes him to human cruelty. That moral ambiguity runs through the entire novel. Shelley, daughter and wife of atheists, wrote about the void left by a silent God. The Romantics were living in an era when divinity was being dismantled into physics and laws of nature, and atheism was becoming almost mainstream. Yet existential anguish intensified: God might not exist, but the pain of His absence is real. That’s why this adaptation feels soulless—it commits the very sin the novel condemns. Shelley’s message is that we are the gods who create and destroy. By erasing that ambiguity, the maternal grief, and the awe of creation, the film cuts itself off from the work’s heart.

   For coherence, then, the film should have shown Victor abandoning his creation—as in the novel—instead of chaining it like an abusive father. In the original, he turns away in horror from his own act. That rejection is crucial: it makes the creature’s awakening existential and contrasts sharply with Victor’s privileged upbringing, making his deed even more blasphemous. The film’s “birth” scene—with its chains and brutality—leans toward melodrama rather than philosophical terror.

   Shelley’s masterpiece endures because she refused to give us just one monster. Victor, his creation, and society itself form a cycle of guilt and despair. In this film, however, the creature is too “good,” his violence overly justified, and the moral tension simplified. Gone is the question—does evil arise or is it made? When he kills Elizabeth, it isn’t cosmic vengeance against divine silence but merely a predictable act of self-defense. Instead of moral allegory, we get a plain hero-versus-villain arc.

   I was also (very) disappointed by the attempt to give the creature depth through Ozymandias—a poem by Shelley’s husband, Percy—and by the fact that the film ends with a line by Lord Byron. So the final word, once again, belongs to a man. Apparently, the woman who gave birth to the myth of modern masculine arrogance still needed male validation.

   And so I was left with a sense of emptiness. For me, the film doesn’t aim to provoke thought or emotion—it just wants to dazzle visually. But Shelley’s story asks to be seen through its contradictions, through human frailty. Here, everything becomes easier, cleaner—and with that, the tension that makes the novel so haunting and so painfully human is lost.

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3. ›Film Review: Frankenstein (1931)@drax1123d

   

   People tend to watch the past through rosy glasses, especially if the past long beyond the living memory. Cinephiles aren’t different and many times they are tempted to view distant chapters of film history as more kinder and gentler than present time. Hollywood many decades ago could build such impression with films that not only didn’t contain of sex, violence and similar questionable content, but even tried to warn the audience beforehand that the content might not be the most suitable for them. One such brief scene appears at the very beginning of Frankenstein, 1931 horror film directed by James Whale, one of the most iconic and influential works in the history of the genre.

   Frankenstein is very loosely based on the famous 1818 novel by Mary Shelley, which is often considered first major literary work of science fiction. It is more firmly based on its 1927 stage adaptation by British writer Peggy Webling, which was further adapted for Broadway by John L. Balderston. The plot is set in the village in Bavarian Alps where Henry Frankenstein (played by Colin Clive), young and brilliant scientist works on a project aimed at creating artificial human being. His plan is to collect organs and tissue from different dead people, stitch them together and bring it to life through advanced electric devices. Frankenstein is so obsessed with his work that he neglected his fiancee Elizabeth (played by Mae Clarke). The real problem is created by his hunchback assistant Fritz (played by Dwight Frye) who collected the wrong brain for the creature – the one belonging to abnormal instead of normal man. The experiment nevertheless succeeds, resulting in huge grotesque creature (played by Boris Karloff) with superhuman strength and mind of an infant. While Frankenstein tries to treat the Monster kindly, it is tormented by Fritz who is ultimately killed. Frankenstein then reluctantly agrees with suggestion of his mentor Dr. Waldmann (played by Edward Van Sloan) that his creation must be humanely put down. The Monster wakes up, kills Waldmann and escapes from Frankenstein’s lab, creating chaos in the village just as Frankenstein is to wed Elizabeth.

   Frankenstein owes its existence to Dracula, another iconic horror film which was released only few months earlier. Those two film have plenty of things in common. Both were produced by Universal Pictures, studio that would soon become specialised for horror films in Classic Hollywood. Both were based on the stage plays. Both had roughly the same and rather short running time of around 70 minutes. Both films don’t have any music (apart from the scenes featuring village celebrations). Both films shared Dwight Frye and Edward Van Sloan as members of the cast. Both became major hits and later had some issues with Hays Code censorship making their original version unavailable to the audience until 1980s.

   Yet, there is also an important difference between two films, most notably in Frankenstein being obviously better. The main reason is in James Whale, experienced British stage director who replaced Robert Florey, originally slated to direct. Whale, despite his stage origins, adapted to the new medium of sound film very well. He shows great knack for impressive visuals, especially in the scenes that take place at night or near dusk and which are obviously inspired by classics of German Expressionist cinema. On the other hand, he successfully mixes Gothic atmosphere of the castle where Frankenstein conducts his experiments with electricity which passed for wonder of modern science in early 1930s. Whale is also good in using bright exteriors to create sharp contrast and he moves camera a lot. And the dialogues in the film seem natural, although there are some exceptions, like the character of Baron Frankenstein, Frankenstein’s father played by Frederick Kerr, which represents weak attempt to provide something of a comic relief in this dark story and even weaker attempt to provide a happy ending in the film’s final scene.

   But Whale isn’t the person usually associated with Frankenstein. That honour belongs to Boris Karloff, middle-aged stage actor who, just like Whale, came to the set as replacement after Bela Lugosi, star of Dracula, had refused to appear in non-speaking part of Monster. Karloff, who had to wear extremely heavy prosthetic makeup designed by Jack Pierce, managed to create one of the most iconic character in the history of horror genre. But it is Karloff’s ability to provide nuance to character under that heavy make up that made Frankenstein so effective. The Monster isn’t a villain in traditional sense. It is presented as creature with child-like innocence who commits atrocious and violent acts due to misunderstandings and inability to comprehend strange new world it was brought to. The best example is the (in)famous scene in which the Monster meets little girl Maria (played by Marilyn Harris) who is, like him, an innocent child and, unafraid, begins to play game with him. That, in probably one of the most heart-breaking scenes in the history of cinema, ends with girl being accidentally killed and leading to predictably violent finale in which the Monster suffers the gruesome fate at the hands of the lynch mob.

   Financial success of Frankenstein led Universal to make plenty of classic horrors films in next decade. In 1935 Whale reunited part of the old cast for the sequel under title The Bride of Frankenstein, which is also considered one of the finest horror films of the period. The next six films were less than successful, the last being parody Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein in 1948. That, however, didn’t prevent Frankenstein becoming one of the most popular, the most iconic and the most influential horror films of all times.

   RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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