Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A brilliant scientist with a big laboratory and access to corpses tries usurping God’s role as life provider. (Thanks for not actually stopping me.) The Frankenstein mythos has seemingly been adapted as many times as there are pages in Mary Shelley’s original novel, with Guillermo del Toro’s dark and emotional take set to stream via Netflix subscription. Now, it appears MCU vet Sebastian Stan is set for a newly crafted take that’ll be a unique entry amongst other upcoming horror movies.
This version of Frankenstein sounds like it could truly stand apart from both highly faithful versions and from the more radical interpretations, thanks in large part to it coming from Romanian writer/director Radu Jude. The filmmaker is currently on the promotional trail for his latest feature, a nearly three-hour version of Dracula, where sucking on other body parts — wink, wink — is just as prominent as the expected neck-centric bloodletting. It already sounds like a Top 5 contender for most bonkers Dracula movies, so I’m hopeful Frankie enjoys a similarly big swing. (Here's one review that addresses the zaniness.)
Jude, who is perhaps best known for directing other 2021’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn and 2023’s Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, hails from Romania, the home country not just of Vlad Dracul, but also of Sebastian Stan. The duo apparently spoke previously about finding the right project to collaborate on, according to THR, and Jude revealed the project amidst his vampire film’s world premiere at the Lorcana Film Festival, saying:
I’m writing a film now. It’s a Frankenstein film in Romania. Frankenstein in Romania, it’s going to be called.
Nothing too mysterious about that title as far as main characters and central locations go, and it doesn’t hint at anything too out of the ordinary. However, this dude doesn’t deliver by-the-books cinema, so expect some of the most darkly comedic and absurdist moments of any Frankenstein movie.
The storyline will reportedly mesh the traditional legend of the misunderstood behemoth with the true-to-life past existence of a hush-hush CIA prison that was located in Romania. Where is the story going to go from there? Will dead prisoners’ body parts be used to create the monster? Will Victor Frankenstein be a corrupt prison warden? How high up the black hat ladder does this operation go?
Stan, who’d relatively recently shaved his head for a new role, liked Jude’s pitch for the Frankenstein-centric story, and the director believes the actor will take on dual roles as both Victor Frankenstein and his makeshift monster. 2024’s A Different Man showed off Stan’s performance-shifting skills, as well as his ability to deliver a realistic performance beneath abundant prosthetics. So I’ve no doubt he’ll bring the goods no matter how many characters he plays.
It’s unclear if Frankenstein in Romania will be written and filmed in time for the 2026 movie schedule, as the director next aims to film a smaller-scale story about a Romanian woman who leaves her young daughter to work for a family in France.
But consider this: during the production of Dracula, Radu Jude and several of the horror film’s cast members simultaneously filmed Kontinental ‘25, a comedy-drama about his country’s housing crisis and middle-class struggles. That movie debuted earlier in 2025 at the Berlin Film Festival, where its screenplay won the Silver Bear.
With Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! also hitting theaters in 2026, I wonder how well that will work paired up with Frankenstein in Romania for an offbeat horror double-feature.
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