What Guillermo del Toro Keeps and Changes from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro and Mary Shelley’s minds meld with Frankenstein. No mixing and matching and stitching required, à la Doctor Frankenstein, for the smooth marriage between two gothic storytellers. In the delicate hands of del Toro, Shelley’s classic story of a monstrous god and unlucky child is a unique adaptation.

Victor’s Tale

Victor’s father, Alphonse (Charles Dance), is another monster in del Toro’s vision of Shelley’s creation. In the book, not so – he’s a loving father and husband. Alphonse doesn’t die when Victor is young, either, but fights to bring his son back to reality. When Victor’s mind unravels as he’s hunted and taunted by The Creature (Jacob Elordi), the father is there every step of the way for his son, always with open, warm arms.

In del Toro’s vision, those arms are cold and closed.

There’s a cruelty to Papa Frankenstein that’s fitting for this modern take. Men creating, not nurturing. Creators running from responsibility, from family, from blood. A loving father has no role to play in del Toro’s Frankenstein.

Victor’s family changes considerably: Elizabeth (Mia Goth) is his adopted sister and future wife in the book, not his future sister-in-law. Victor’s brother, Will, too, is a young boy, not a peer to Victor, helping him build his mad tower of creation.

Victor’s mother (also played by Mia Goth) is his fleeting source of light and warmth. When she dies, his obsession to bring the dead back to life carries more dramatic and tragic weight in the film. If Victor were surrounded by happy-go-lucky family members on-screen, then his brilliant yet one-track mind wouldn’t fully connect.

The madness of Victor is cranked up – as is his budget and surroundings. A major addition to the story is the mad scientist’s water tower, the laboratory where he builds his misunderstood son. In Shelley’s story, there’s no Gothic tower. It’s an apartment, that’s it. Guillermo del Toro isn’t a filmmaker to go small. (Note: read our recent interview about how this Gothic tower was constructed)

FRANKENSTEIN. (L to R) Jacob Elordi as the Creature and Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein n Frankenstein. Cr. Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2025.

And neither is Victor’s backer, Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz). Creation costs money. Harlander, an arms dealer with gold shoes, is an entirely new character. Not only does the pitiable antagonist become a source of grounding and levity for the story, but also a new relevance. Here’s a rich man who wants to live forever. A moneymaker who’ll use science for ego, longevity, and profit – not for the people. Harlander is a monster, but he’s also rotting flesh – another body crumbling (due to syphilis) before Victor’s eyes as he builds one.

The rest of Victor’s journey is largely faithful to the actions of Shelley’s story. The framing device remains: the scientist recounting his story to an obsessive captain, where he awaits his boy or death to come for him. All the sense of adventure, horror, and whimsy is brought to the screen with a bombastic gracefulness by del Toro.

Perhaps the only moment that falters is when a dying Will calls Frankenstein “the monster.” It’s not subtext; it’s text in the original book as well, but it doesn’t need vocalizing. Del Toro and his crew’s visuals tell that story already.

The Creature’s Tale

In previous adaptations, the Creature is painted as a monster. No knock against masterful portrayals, including the original Universal classic, but Victor wants to make something beautiful. When he’s gathering body parts, he wants pretty pieces.

He’s an eloquent Creature, too. Victor’s son is poetic and verbose. He is his father’s son, after all. True to Shelley’s writing, The Creature speaks beautifully as horrors haunt him.
Del Toro paints the Creature with more innocence as well. In the book, he does kill Elizabeth. He wants revenge, to vanquish all the love in Victor’s life. Even for del Toro, maybe that would’ve been too dark, but it also would’ve been ill-fitting for his Frankenstein.

Del Toro emphasizes Frankenstein as the story of a child – a newborn who either will or won’t succumb to the violent ways of men. If The Creature were killing Victor’s family, then his coming-of-age story, his fight for a soul in a world that doesn’t want him to have one, wouldn’t hit as hard.

FRANKENSTEIN. (L to R) Mia Goth as Elizabeth and Jacob Elordi as The Creature in Frankenstein. Cr. Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2025.

Final Verdict

Del Toro’s visual poetry alone is all the faithfulness to Shelley’s story it needs. The filmmaker doesn’t copy and paste her words, but he visualizes how they feel. Shots ache with life in a classic story about death.

It’s thrilling – watching Shelley’s grand imagination brought to life through del Toro’s soulful eyes. The intimate grandeur is pure Frankenstein. It’s a dreamy nightmare of an adaptation.