Guillermo del Toro’s long-gestating Frankenstein adaptation has always sounded like the perfect fit, and fans will soon see it hulking across the 2025 movie schedule. A master of gothic visuals, heart-wrenching monsters, and morally complex storytelling, Del Toro's take on Mary Shelley’s seminal tale is ambrosia for my horror-loving veins. At least ideally, as his recent comments make me think I shouldn’t consider it an upcoming horror movie at all, makig me feel a strange mix of anticipation and anxiety.
Speaking onstage at Cannes Film Festival in a conversation with frequent collaborator and composer Alexandre Desplat (via Variety), del Toro offered new insight into his creative approach. And while Frankenstein remains one of literature’s greatest horror and science fiction stories, the Oscar-winning director made it clear that’s not the framing he sees surrounding his adaptation. According to the Mexico-born filmmaker:
Somebody asked me the other day, does it have really scary scenes? For the first time, I considered that. It’s an emotional story for me. It’s as personal as anything. I’m asking a question about being a father, being a son… I’m not doing a horror movie — ever. I’m not trying to do that.
Let me be clear, I don’t need Frankenstein to be a jump-scare machine. Del Toro’s strength has always been his ability to find humanity in the monstrous. The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth, the beautifully gothic Crimson Peak, and even Hellboy are some of his best films and aren’t built on terror alone, and they, like many of his movies, are hard to fit neatly into one genre.
Those films linger in viewers' minds because of the emotional journeys the characters take us on, not so much for bosting the most terrifying scenes in cinema. But still, when you're working with source material as inherently eerie, existential and monstrous as Frankenstein, there's a fine line between poetic and defanged.
Del Toro’s work with Desplat gives us some hints about the film’s vibe. The composer, who has teamed up with the movie maker on The Shape of Water (a Best Picture winner) and Pinocchio, explained that their scoring style isn’t your typical horror music. According to the Cronos director, Desplat’s music captures this unique approach to the material:
We’re finding the emotion. And what I can say is, for me, it’s an incredibly emotional movie.
The composer agreed with his collaborator's sentiments. Regarding his approach, Desplat said:
Guillermo’s cinema is very lyrical, and my music is rather lyrical too. So I think the music of Frankenstein will be something very lyrical and emotional… I’m not trying to write horrific music.
This maybe won't be a big shock for fans who have followed Guillermo del Toro's career. He’s never been one for black-and-white morals or monsters whose sole purposes are to scare others. He even talks about a moment that stuck with him when he first felt empathy for a creature: Marilyn Monroe's character in The Seven Year Itch sympathizing with the monster in Frankenstein. That moment made him realize that a lot of the time, The Monster is just misunderstood, which is what leads to all the horror and mayhem. At least traditionally, if not here.
The film, which stars Jacob Elordi as the creature alongside Oscar Isaac and Mia Goth, is slated to premiere on the Netflix streaming schedule this November.
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