Version Control: Which ‘Frankenstein’ should you watch this Halloween?
Remakes, reimaginings, and readaptations have been a part of the movies as long as the medium has existed. With the series Version Control, Jesse Hassenger explores stories with multiple notable incarnations throughout cinema history, to help determine which movie version may be right for your streaming needs
Frankenstein, the doctor from Mary Shelley’s classic gothic novel, may have the most enduring monster-related surname of all time. Sure, Dracula is probably just as popular (and engenders less confusion about whose name it actually is), but the novel bearing Frankenstein’s name was published even earlier, in 1818. Since then, various combinations of a mad scientist creating life out of dead body parts and the resulting monster have run (and staggered) through countless films over the years. Not all of these are close adaptations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; many of them are not adaptations at all, just reappropriations of the same basic idea. (The difference is just how few of those variations get by without some kind of reference to Frankenstein, versus the enormous number of non-Dracula vampires.) This can make sorting through Frankenstein movies especially onerous, especially whenever a new one comes out bearing the good doctor’s name.
That’s happened again, as Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein hits theaters ahead of a Netflix launch – boasting a far tonier pedigree than many recent monster movies, but the same basic title as several others. That’s just one more reason you need Version Control, to sort through the most prominent adaptations of Frankenstein and decide which one you need to prioritize for your Halloween viewing (or beyond).
Photo: Shudder James Whale’s 1931 classic features the version of Frankenstein’s Monster that most people probably picture when they hear the name: tall, flat-top haircut, neck bolts. It’s also, interestingly, a vast departure from the Shelley novel. Rather than filling in Victor Frankenstein’s personal history, the story begins mid-graverobbing (many of Whale’s horror movies are similarly expedient) – oh, and it’s not Victor, but Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) for some reason. There are plenty of similarly strange changes that leave the movie separate from Shelley and also distinct from some of the most famous iconography. For example: Henry has a hunchbacked assistant, but he’s named Fritz, not Igor – and there’s no such character in the novel, anyway.
Moreover, Boris Karloff’s performance as Frankenstein’s Monster sticks to the earlier, more childlike version of the character – who in the novel goes on to learn language, reading, and writing, becoming quite articulate in the process. The Karloff character, perhaps realistically, stays in an arrested form of compromised communication, lending the movie a differently tragic dimension than its source material. Fidelity isn’t everything, after all. Genuinely iconic, trim at 70 minutes, and featuring one of cinema’s most memorable performances, Frankenstein would be an easy winner under most circumstances… if not for the fact that the sequel, Bride of Frankenstein, is even better! Whale’s 1935 sequel spins off from a plot point in the Shelley text but takes it further, while the movie itself is weirder, funnier, and even cooler-looking than its predecessor. (It may get its own Version Control when the Maggie Gyllenhaal reimagining hits theaters in the spring.) It’s the original superior sequel. So where does that leave the fantastic original? Still a must-see, but not necessarily in first Frankenstein position. Let’s continue to examine the competition.
Fresh off the success of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Francis Ford Coppola turned his sights to another famous lit-based monster, but not as a director this time. He produced Kenneth Branagh’s similarly feverish Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which promptly bombed at the box office, performing as a de facto sequel to Coppola’s Dracula, which polarized audiences in 1992. Branagh cast himself as Frankenstein, Helena Bonham Carter as Victor’s childhood love (and, in this telling, adopted sister, yeesh!) Elizabeth, and none other than Robert De Niro as the Creature. Given its pedigree, expectations were understandably high, and both critics and audiences seemed underwhelmed by the movie whipsawing from over-the-top melodrama (especially in its pre-monster half) into more introspective material featuring De Niro, whose performance here is underrated (and was probably unfairly compared to Karloff).
While the film lacks the pure bonkers craft of Coppola’s movie-mad (and decidedly horny) Dracula, it’s a worthwhile companion piece to that movie, and far more faithful to the source material than the 1931 film. Interestingly, Branagh pays homage to the older films by taking off from the Shelley plot point that inspired Bride of Frankenstein and pursuing an idea more related to the Whale sequel, a clever solution to the lack of surprise in so many remakes/re-adaptations. The movie is also inescapably Branagh-directed, which means you get more of Branagh than you probably need or want, frequently served up shirtless. But is it not sort of appropriate for a Frankenstein movie to be directed by an egomaniac who loses control of his creation?
Guillermo del Toro has long regarded Frankenstein as a dream project, and with that status comes plenty of danger: Sometimes dream projects float around in a filmmaker’s head for so long that they become foggy and vaporous, impossible to properly translate to the screen with the necessary intensity. On top of which, wouldn’t it make more sense for del Toro to riff on Frankenstein without adapting it, the way The Shape of Water isn’t actually a remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon? Yet against those odds and plenty of others (Netflix’s involvement, for one), del Toro has made his Frankenstein both a satisfying adaptation and very much is own thing. The sets and costumes are as elaborate and opulent as you might expect, and though del Toro is largely in gothic Crimson Peak mode here, man, he’s also working overtime to provide wonderfully gruesome new horror images, whether through Frankenstein’s earlier trial-and-error experiments or the later gory wrath of the Creature (Jacob Elordi), who is given superhero-like powers of healing and strength. Elordi does some of his best work ever in the role, Oscar Isaac is great fun as the mad doctor, and Mia Goth does lovely work as Elizabeth, here recast as Victor’s brother’s fiancée and given a few scenes of connection with the monster.
If there’s a problem with the movie, it’s a carryover from the initial concern over del Toro tackling material that so informs so much of his work: He telegraphs his man-is-the-real-monster point early and often, ultimately seeming uninterested in lending much sympathy to Dr. Frankenstein – his lead character, despite the monster sympathy! That’s not an inherent problem, but in the context of del Toro’s work and other monster movies, it does feel a bit familiar. Then again, as a reimagining of a book that’s been around for 200 years, Frankenstein is remarkably fresh, especially as a visual experience. Netflix may not be giving it the saturated theatrical release it deserves, but it’s worth seeking out on the big screen if it’s playing near you (and it is hitting more indie theaters than usual for a Netflix movie before its Nov. 7 streaming debut).
THE VERSION CONTROL VERDICT: FRANKENSTEIN (2025)
To be clear, the 1931 Frankenstein is a classic and you should see it (and Bride of Frankenstein, which is even cooler, and probably one of the ten best horror movies ever). That said, if you’re looking for an adaptation of the Mary Shelley novel specifically, del Toro’s new version is the one to check out. It’s faithful to much of the plot and thematic concerns of the book while offering up enough variation to not feel like a rote recitation.
