Popular culture misperceives Frankenstein

For more than two centuries, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" has been a monster that refuses to die — constantly revived, reassembled, and returned to culture.

The basic parable is timeless: a talented but blinded scientist plays God, creating life from reanimated body parts. Horrified by his own work, he abandons it, and the rejected "creature" becomes the monster society deems him to be.

That core story has proven resilient enough to survive everything from the iconic 1930s horror films starring Boris Karloff to sitcoms and children's cartoons. But most of what audiences "know" about Frankenstein actually comes from the movies, not Mary Shelley's 1818 novel.

Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein," starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi, now available on Netflix, follows Shelley's vision more faithfully than most film versions of her monster myth: compassion for the creature is at the forefront, and the central theme remains a warning against human hubris and playing God. Still, differences between Shelley's novel and its popular depictions persist.

How Hollywood "remade" the monster

As is well known, in the original novel Frankenstein is not the name of the monster, but of the scientist who gives it life - Victor Frankenstein. He is neither a "doctor" nor a baron in a castle, but an ambitious student of "natural philosophy".

In Mary Shelley's version, the creature is not irrational, not mumbling as in most film adaptations, but is an eloquent autodidact who teaches himself English and moral philosophy after finding a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost - and narrates the second half of the novel himself.

The most recognizable elements of the story of "Frankenstein" - resurrection by lightning (with Victor's cry "He's alive!!!"), green skin, metal screws in the neck, and slow gait - are all later theatrical and film fabrications.

Most of them stem from James Whale's two Universal films: "Frankenstein" (1931) and "The Bride of Frankenstein" (1935), in which the inimitable Boris Karloff played the sluggish monster and Elsa Lanchester his reluctant companion with a high bun. Whale's films established the look, sound, and laboratory aesthetic that everyone still expects from a Frankenstein story today.

More Lives of Frankenstein

In the years - and centuries - since the novel was first published anonymously under the title "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus," the creature has undergone countless reinterpretations. The British film company Hammer Films made a series of Technicolor versions from "The Curse of Frankenstein" (1957) to "Frankenstein and the Monsters from Hell" (1974), in which the creature is portrayed as tragic rather than terrifying, while the megalomaniacal Baron Frankenstein (usually played by Peter Cushing) is the real villain.

Alongside horror films, parodies also appear. One example is the slapstick comedy "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948).

This was followed by the cult comedy "The Rocky Horror Show" (1975), in which Tim Curry plays Dr. Frank-Anne Furter, "the sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania"; as well as Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" (1974), a comedy full of hilarious gags that is also a warm tribute to the original.

On American television in the 1960s, the sitcom "The Munsters" transformed Frankenstein into Herman Munster, a well-meaning but somewhat twisted family man.

By the time of the "Hotel Transylvania" series, the monster created by Mary Shelley became "Frank," a lovable sidekick - and existential angst was turned into family fun.

Ironically, some of the films that come closest to the original aren't from the "Frankenstein" series at all. David Cronenberg's "The Fly" (1986), in which a scientist himself becomes the monster, is a poignant cinematic warning about the dangers of scientific over-exaggeration.

Tim Burton's film "Edward Scissorhands" (1990) focuses on a rejected creature, evoking themes of empathy and abandonment.

And the film "Poor Creatures" (2023) by Yorgos Lanthimos reexamines the myth through a feminist prism: a revived woman (Emma Stone won an Oscar for this role) takes control of her own life - in this one can see an echo of the ideas of Mary Shelley's mother, the pioneer of feminism Mary Wollstonecraft.

Return to the character from the book

Del Toro's "Frankenstein" fits into the tradition of directors who seek to revive Mary Shelley's original intent. Truer to the spirit than to every detail, his film returns the story to its roots - it is not primarily a horror story, but a story of creation, rejection and moral responsibility.

It should come as no surprise that the author of "Hellboy" (2004) and "The Shape of Water" (2017) sides with the monster. His two-and-a-half-hour epic emphasizes the writer's basic compassion for the creature, treating it not as a freak, but as a conscious being born into a world that doesn't accept it.

Thematically, Del Toro draws heavily on the preoccupations of the book: the danger of uncontrolled creation, the arrogance of human power, and the profound loneliness of the outcast.

Like Shelley, he sees the tragedy as a story of abandonment - of a parent who cannot love what he has created. (Victor Frankenstein, played by Oscar Isaac, transfers the traumas he received from his father to his "divinely" created child.)

Jacob Elordi has extremely powerfully embodied an essentially good and innocent being who gradually learns about the dark side of humanity.

Del Toro pays homage to earlier film adaptations - there's a lightning-revival scene and a few "mad" scientist expressions - but this version feels closer to the literary original than any other (including Kenneth Branagh's over-the-top 1994 "Mary Shelley Frankenstein").

Del Toro's "Frankenstein" doesn't reinvent the myth, but rather revives its moral center. By stripping away the kitsch and mad scientists, it returns to the question Shelley posed at the heart of the story: what happens when human ambition and technological progress overcome empathy?

In an age shaped by artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and the power of algorithmic decision-making, perhaps the real monster isn't hiding in the lab - it's watching us from the reflection of our screens.