Fitting for the approaching Halloween season, Guillermo del Toro’s cinematic rendition of Frankenstein released its trailer on the first of October. Displaying the esteemed director’s signature visual style with his penchant for the ornate and horrifying imagery, with the budget provided by distributor Netflix, who had revived the project in 2023, allowing del Toro to explore his imagination to extents previously unseen in his career.

Del Toro has described his planned adaptation of Frankenstein for two decades now, stemming back to interviews he gave in 2007. Based on previous interviews and corroborated by the visuals of the trailer, Del Toro’s Frankenstein could be set to be the most faithful film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel since Kenneth Branagh’s take in 1994 with Mary Shelley”s Frankenstein, where Robert De Niro starred as the monster. Del Toro has vocalized praise for the original screenplay of that film, written by iconic filmmaker Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist).  Branagh’s film was made in an era where new film takes of the classic Universal Monsters catalogue that hewed closer to their literary origins was a trend, as seen by Francis Ford Coppola’s spin on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Likewise, del Toro himself has been working in a mode of more literary accurate adaptations as his previous film Nightmare Alley was a remake of the classic 40s noir that reinstated darker elements from the novel, particularly in its ending.

Now while del Toro’s Frankenstein is likely to be quite book accurate, there are still some stylized changes made such as a potentially more action packed and grand take on the Monster’s appearance in the Arctic and its encounter with voyaging sailors. Del Toro will also incorporate his own cinematic flourishes that ties to the Gothic themes of the novel, such as having actress Mia Goth play both the mother of Victor Frankenstein, and his bride-to-be Elizabeth, in an Oedipal-drenched casting decision. Rounding out the cast are Oscar Isaac as Victor, Jacob Elordi as the Monster, Charles Dance as Victor’s father, Christoph Waltz as Elizabeth’s uncle, and Ralph Ineson as Professor Krempe, mentioned in the novel as a teacher of Victor and further corroborating the movie’s devoted interest in realizing the little details of the novel. Frankenstein is set to be released on Netflix to a limited theatrical roll-out beginning October 17, before being released globally on the streamer’s service on November 7th.