I’ve said for as long as I can remember that there’s no such thing as a bad year for movies. To be sure, there are some years, such as 1999, that are positively crammed full of classics. To be also sure, there are other years where the number of quality films is…uh…a little reduced! But every year, great films emerge. Sometimes, you just have to look a little harder for them.

I said to someone last night that 2025 has been a lousy year in a lot of ways, but it’s been a rock solid year for cinema. We’re midway through October, and already we’ve gotten:

• Superman
• KPop Demon Hunters
• F1
• Roofman
• The Long Walk
• Black Bag
• Mickey 17
• The Gorge
• The Naked Gun
• Highest 2 Lowest
• One Battle After Another
• Eddington

Oh, nearly forgot, we also got 28 Years Later, Weapons, and Sinners. Quality horror doesn’t come along very often, but in the foul year of our Lord 2025, we’ve gotten four could-be-classics. I can hear you saying, “Hold up, I can count! You mentioned four horror bangers, but only listed three. What gives, smart guy?” The fourth one would be Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Frankenstein.

We’re introduced to Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen), the leader of an 1857 Arctic expedition. His ship has become irrevocably trapped in the ice. His men exhaust themselves trying and failing to free the ship. Rather than pushing to discover passage to the North Pole, the men urge their Captain to head home. Their spirits are low, and they get far lower when a severely injured man is discovered. 

The man is Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), and the tale he begins to tell is unbelievable. He informs Captain Anderson that he is hunting a Creature (Jacob Elordi), while also being hunted by it. Initially, Anderson dismisses it as the ravings of a man trapped in delirium. He discovers he is wrong, when the Creature attacks the ship in pursuit of Victor. After several men are swiftly killed, the Creature is barely driven away.

To be sure, it’s only a matter of time before the Creature returns. Victor understands time is running out. He is compelled to clear his conscience, and like it or not, Anderson will be his confessor. Victor remembers a childhood with a beloved mother (Mia Goth) and a domineering father (Charles Dance). He remembers his mother dying in childbirth, his physician father unable to save her. He nurses a grudge against fate, the universe, God, and vows to discover a way to stop death.

Victor spends years obsessively studying medicine. He masters many scientific disciplines, some decidedly unsavory. His younger brother William (Felix Kammerer) tries to drag Victor into the light by introducing him to his fiancee, Elizabeth (also Mia Goth). That proves to be a mixed blessing when Victor also meets Harlander (Christoph Waltz), Elizabeth’s wealthy uncle. Harlander soon becomes Victor’s mentor and benefactor. He’ll fund Victor’s ghoulish experiments, ones involving harnessed electricity, the bodies of dead men, and the creation of something never before witnessed.

A little research tells me that one of director Guillermo del Toro’s dream projects* was an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel “Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus.” We all know that sometimes, when filmmakers actually make their dream projects, things don’t go well.** Thankfully, del Toro has made an outstanding film that’s a sumptuous feast for the eyes. He’s always been a strong visual stylist, and I think this might be his best looking film. The colors are rich and eye-popping, the costumes are stunning, and the cinematography pops. Beyond the spectacle, he’s got a richness of depth. Del Toro’s pacing is deliberate. He allows time for us to get to know what’s going on in the heads of both Victor and the Creature, in between scenes of massive lightning strikes, fiery infernos, and the Creature positively demolishing scores of people and wolves.***

Del Toro wrote the screenplay, and his adaptation is quasi-faithful to Mary Shelley’s novel. We still have the opening and closing scenes in the Arctic, Victor studying forbidden science, his creation of the Creature, and time spent as the Creature learns about the world around him. There’s more of an emphasis on the theme of generational trauma, the idea that the abuse visited upon Victor by his father will cascade down to the Creature. It’s a smart decision, and del Toro takes Shelley’s cue to split up parts of the script between Victor’s perspective and that of the Creature in order to drill down into that concept. We see how cruelty, guilt, remorse, and forgiveness affect these two, and how those emotions create collateral damage.

I appreciate that, despite being such a visual filmmaker, del Toro always remembers his cast is a crucial part of the puzzle. I suspect Mia Goth was cast as Elizabeth due to her trademark otherworldly energy. She doesn’t coast on it, and instead, she plays a sharp woman with far more emotional intelligence than those around her. Perhaps it runs in the family and, as her uncle, Christoph Waltz plays a man who knows things are likely to turn out poorly, yet he has his own motives for helping Victor. Speaking of the titular character, Oscar Isaac does precise work showing us that Victor is a) a genius, b) perhaps more than a little bipolar, and c) a dick. His performance isn’t humorless, and I suspect actors have a blast playing the role of the not so good doctor. I imagine playing the Creature is much less of a blast, and reportedly, it took Jacob Elordi close to ten hours in the makeup chair to achieve the look of the creature.**** That time spent was worth it, since Elordi’s performance is frankly astonishing. If you watch how he moves, you’ll see he’s not aping the stiff golem portrayed by Boris Karloff. Instead, he’s an amalgamation of stitched-together body parts still learning to work in unity. Alongside that, Elordi lets us into the keen loneliness and towering rage within the Creature. Shelley wrote in her novel, “Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone?” Elordi brings her words to charged life.

Guillermo del Toro’s films have been nominated for twenty-five Academy Awards and won eight. While I think the odds are good that Frankenstein will be nominated, too, it doesn’t matter. He’s made a film that simultaneously honors the nineteenth century source material and feels relevant to the twenty-first century. With that in mind, what difference does it make if it wins a prize? Whether you see this film theatrically or catch it on Netflix November 7, do yourself a favor and see one of the best films of the year.

*Another of his dream projects was an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s novel “At the Mountains of Madness.” It would have been produced by James Cameron and starred Tom Cruise. The fact that this project didn’t get off the ground is more evidence we live in the worst timeline.

**Looking at you, Megalopolis.

***So…look. I get that part of the iconography of gothic horror is packs of snarling wolves. But is there any way we can move past the trope of aggressive and bloodthirsty wolves? If the Creature was going up against a bear? Cool. Werewolves? Even cooler! But gray wolves aren’t inherently aggressive toward people. 

****Which was based on the design from legendary artist Bernie Wrightson.

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.