Frankenstein

It was early January of the year 1995 and i had just bought my ticket for the Swedish premiere weekend of Mary Shelley´s Frankenstein film, directed by Kenneth Branagh. I had been reading about this film in movie magazines in 1994, with very detailed interviews with director Kenneth Branagh himself and he explained why he was so passionate telling this classic story. I even remember a TV special by MTV At The Movies talking about this film. Based on the novel Frankenstein by British author Mary Shelley, the 1994 movie adaptation of the book is one version of the classic book but visually a bit different. The film tell the story of scientist Victor Frankenstein, who is obsessed by the idea that you can bring life into a dead body. While he is trying to figure out how he could possibly use a dead human and create a whole new life through his medical knowledge, he uses one man´s body while giving this body another person´s brain to be able to bring back this body to life. He experiement of bringing new life succeed and he have created a new beast, but things does not go as he have planned. The beast escapes and nothing will ever be the same again. I remember enjoying this film adaptation back in 1995 and what i especially enjoyed was the performance of legendary actor Robert De Niro as The Creature. Looking back at this film today i might feel differently about it, because i remember the last time i watched this film on DVD about 10 years ago i did feel that it has not aged well. There are parts of the film i remember enjoying, while there are some details i feel could have been improved. If you do want to watch this film in a special release, you should get the 4kUltraHD release of Mary Shelley´s Frankenstein from Arrow Video that includes some nice special features. Well known horror director Guillermo del Toro, who directed films such as Mimic, The Devil´s Backbone, Blade 2, Hellboy and others, had talked about making a film version or Mary Shelley´s Frankenstein all the way back in 2007. In 2023 he was finally able to get the project of Frankenstein revived by Netflix. So, late last year the Netflix film Frankenstein finally landed on the streaming service and being a huge fan of director Guillermo del Toro of course i had to see this film. Is this the best movie adaptation so far of the classic horror novel or did they fail not delivering what fans of the novel was hoping for?

In 1857, Horisont, a Royal Danish Navy ship sailing to the north pole, becomes trapped in ice. Alerted to an explosion in a distance, Captain Anderson ( Lars Mikkelsen ) and his men discover a gravely injured Victor Frankenstein ( Oscar Isaac ). Upon bringing him aboard, the crew is attacked by an uknown creature who demand to see Victor. Captain Andersson manage to get the creature sinking on the ice, but Victor warns that the creature will return. It is on board this ship that Victor tell the story of how he created this beast.

I had a feeling that this version of Frankenstein would be unique considering the previous brilliant work of director Guillermo del Toro, and that feeling turned out to be true. This is exactly what i was hoping a classic story should be told. This is a very majestic film with really beautiful cinematography by Danish cinematographer Dan Laustsen ( who also worked on films such as the 2006 horror film adaptation of Silent Hill ), amazing costume design by Kate Hawley ( who worked as a costume designer on two previous film of director Guillermo del Toro ) and the fact that this film uses practical make up effects is without a doubt one of the true highlights when we see the creature being created. If you are going to tell a classic story such as Frankenstein you have to do it with a lot of passion for the source material. And that is something i can tell that Guillermo really wanted to tell his vision of Frankenstein while keeping some classic ingredients. The acting is just as powerful as you might have expected and lead actor Oscar Isaac ( who you should see in the 2014 gangster crime drama film A Most Violent Year ) as the scientist Victor Frankenstein. The way that Oscar portrait this character is fascinating to see. Some might call him a complete maniac being so fascinated in death, but at the same time he is clearly very intelligent within medical knowledge. His relationship to The Creature really capture the essence of the classic story where actor Jacob Elordi portrait the creature really powerful. You may ask yourself should we experiment with death or accept the ways of nature? Actress Mia Goth does another really solid acting performance as Lady Elizabeth and have such a smooth screen presence. The creature design is really well constructed by practical make up effects and matches really well with the storyline. If you love classic horror stories but appreciate the previous work of Guillermo del Toro then you will definetely not be disappointed. He really knows how to tell such a classic tale in his own unique way adding his magical touches of film making. Frankenstein from director Guillermo del Toro is the best version i have seen so far of this classic horror story and will hopefully inspire film makers to work more with practical make up effects in the future. A must watch on Netflix.

Rating: DDDD