Frankenstein (2025): Reclaiming the Monstrous in a Modern Age:

Early November saw the release of Guillermo del Toro’s long-anticipated adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). With a $120 million budget and an 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the film was praised for its stunning cinematography, intricate costume design and hair and makeup. Renewed attention to the original text has opened up debates over Del Toro’s interpretation. Significant changes, ranging from Dr Frankenstein’s family relationships to the monster’s character and the tragic ending of the film, diverge from Shelly’s original vision. Here, Frankenstein’s monster is portrayed as a gentle, child-like soul who was turned into a monster by the circumstances he inhabited, pushed to violence in order to survive. These changes resonate with modern-day reinterpretations of the text, particularly those who have adopted the Monster as a symbol in queer, ‘crip’ and feminist discourse. 

Frankenstein’s monster has come to resonate with many theorists analysing the exclusion of non-normative bodies; Susan Stryker views Shelley’s character as the embodiment of transgender rage, a being that fights to exist in a world that views their body as less than human. Similarly, Judith Halberstam regards the monster’s form as a site where identity becomes illegible to patriarchal structures due to its multiplicity and non-normativity. French artist ORLAN, who undergoes surgical interventions as a form of self-sculpture, adopts the iconography of the Bride of Frankenstein to visually expand on the concept of the “monstrous feminine”, that which renders women abject. Together, these thinkers reveal the radical power underlying Shelley’s timeless text, its capacity to speak for those whose bodies and identities are deemed monstrous, and to transform monstrosity itself into a form of resistance. 

As the film unfolds, it becomes clear that del Toro’s vision incorporates many of these later theoretical interpretations. Elordi’s line, “I am obscene to you, but to myself I simply am”, captures the essence of these modern discourses surrounding embodiment. The Creature refuses to internalise the disgust projected onto his body, echoing Stryker’s defiant declaration: “I challenge you to risk abjection and flourish as well as I have.” Del Toro’s decision to end the film with Victor urging his creation to live fully reframes the story, not as a cautionary tale of scientific hubris, but as a gesture towards autonomy. Frankenstein’s monster, denied consent in his creation, finds agency in his existence. In living, he reclaims the very life that was meant to mark him as monstrous, emerging as an enduring symbol of non-normative embodiment. 

Cover image: Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard, The Wounded Philoctetes, 1775.