Let’s get this out of the way first…
I haven’t seen Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein yet.
But before I hop onto Netflix, I need to get something off my chest.
The College Years and the Church of Del Toro
Back when I was in school studying cinema, we had this “Genre and Auteur Theory” class.
One week, the professor lined up a Guillermo del Toro trilogy: Cronos, The Devil’s Backbone, and Pan’s Labyrinth.
We were allowed to skip two screenings as long as we saw one.
I went to the first two, Cronos and The Devil’s Backbone.
And, man… they were beautiful, sure, but also boring as hell.
The Devil’s Backbone bored me to tears. It was visually striking, but so middling it felt like watching a screensaver with subtitles.
Cronos had that cool scarab moment where the thing attaches to the guy’s chest, but beyond that? Forgettable. Great concept, middling execution.
So when Pan’s Labyrinth rolled around, I skipped it. I figured, “Same song, third verse.”
Of course, years later, I watched it, and yeah, I regretted missing it. Pan’s Labyrinth was practically a masterpiece. But that’s not the point.
The point is what happened in that classroom.
By week three, my peers were raving about del Toro like he was some kind of cinematic messiah.
They talked about his “vision,” his “mythic themes,” his “command of tone.”
It wasn’t analysis, it was worship.
As if Guillermo might overhear them through the projector vents and drop chocolates from the ceiling in gratitude.
It was mob minded praise.
The professor had already made their minds up for them before the first reel even spun.
And that’s when it clicked for me: the cult of del Toro had begun.
The Artist and the Aura
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’s a bad director.
He’s got flair. He’s got vision.
But he’s also mastered the art of being adored.
He’s flamboyant in all the right ways. He knows how to make an image iconic, how to tease a monster just enough to make the audience lean forward.
And he’s damn good at turning anticipation into marketing.
But where’s the meat? Where’s the film that stays with you?
Why I’m Wary of Frankenstein
This is what worries me going into Frankenstein.
Del Toro’s monsters are almost always the same archetype; grotesque on the outside, gentle on the inside.
But Frankenstein shouldn’t be so simple.
In Mary Shelley’s novel, the horror isn’t just in the creation; it’s in the rejection.
The true monster is often the man who made him, not the one he made.
That theme, the creator’s lack of responsibility for his own creation, should carry through in any faithful adaptation.
If not, then c’est la vie. There have been worse mistakes in films that turned out to be happy accidents.
Will Del Toro let that complexity live, or will he paint it over with empathy until it’s just another tragic fairy tale?
Will Frankenstein’s creature be allowed to do terrible things and still make us question who’s to blame?
Or will he turn him into a misunderstood superhero?
That’s my worry.
Del Toro might be too in love with his monsters to let them be monstrous.
Final Thoughts
I hope I’m wrong.
I hope Frankenstein hits harder than anything he’s made before, that it’s dark, unsettling, and unwilling to flinch.
There’s a wave of classic monster stories rising again, from The Wolfman by Leigh Whannell, to The Bride coming in March, and if del Toro can anchor that resurgence with something real, I’ll gladly eat crow.
But until then, I’ll keep my expectations low and my fingers crossed.
Because sometimes, it’s not the monster that worries me… it’s the creator.