Guillermo del Toro’s new cinematic version of Frankenstein is a peculiar creature. On the one hand, it’s a faithful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 Gothic novel, capturing key themes and including aspects of the plot rarely depicted in the many other film and TV versions. On the other hand, del Toro (the acclaimed Mexican director behind Pan’s Labyrinth) updates Shelley’s original in ways that reflect his more personal wrestle with the God of Christianity.

We’ll get to those updates, but first, it’s helpful to grasp some of del Toro’s worldview and why his lens on the iconic story would lead him to rework the story in this particular way.

Frankenstein as del Toro’s ‘Personal Messiah’

Del Toro grew up Catholic and recently told NPR’s Terry Gross of the childhood moment when, after Sunday mass, he first watched the 1931 Boris Karloff Frankenstein movie. It prompted a spiritual epiphany:

I understood my faith or my dogmas better through Frankenstein than through Sunday Mass. I saw the resurrection of the flesh, the immaculate conception, ecstasy, you know, stigmata. Everything made sense. And I decided at age 7 that the creature of Frankenstein was going to be my personal avatar and my personal messiah. It was a really profound transformation, and it made an impression that lasted my whole life.

This explains why del Toro’s filmography is full of “monsters” that end up being sympathetic characters. What society views as horrific, del Toro’s goth-macabre fairy tales tend to find noble, or at least misunderstood. He flips the script on “monster movies,” showing normie humans to be more monstrous than the freaks, ghouls, or outcasts they demonize. All this culminates in his version of Frankenstein.

In the same NPR interview, del Toro compares the creature (in his film played by Australian actor Jacob Elordi) to Jesus and at various times cites the parable of the prodigal son and the book of Job as biblical references for his telling of the story. Indeed, the Christian emphasis on forgiveness is a big theme throughout the film. And at the moment Frankenstein brings his creature to “life,” the dead flesh is arranged in a conspicuously cruciform pose.

If this sounds confusing, it is. Del Toro—now a self-described “lapsed Catholic”—has a post-Christian sensibility that’s simultaneously inspired and repulsed by Christian theology. This makes for films that are morally mixed up at best and morally problematic at worst (I found his Oscar-winning Shape of Water abhorrent).

Del Toro has a post-Christian sensibility that’s simultaneously inspired and repulsed by Christian theology.

Del Toro’s imagination and aesthetic are deeply shaped by his Catholic upbringing. Frankenstein is rife with Christian statuary, imagery of angels and demons, light and dark. Yet his spiritual worldview also has a subversive posture toward his Christian upbringing, which comes across in his adaptation’s angst at God and skepticism about transcendent meaning.

Horror of Playing God

In one big way, the film is faithful to Shelley’s original. Shelley wrote the novel in the context of the Industrial Revolution’s rapid change, and the book—often considered the first work of science fiction—is in part a cautionary tale about the unintended consequences that arise when man leverages technology recklessly, especially in pursuit of “playing God” power.

Del Toro’s film reflects this well, underscored in its marketing tagline (“Only monsters play god”). As we watch Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) pursuing his goal of animating a human out of dead human flesh, the folly of the scientific quest to “conquer death” is horrifyingly clear. Victor calls his attempt to “regenerate life” a “divine act” and brazenly labels God “inept.” He wants to “have command over the forces of life and death” and seeks nothing less than ushering in “life eternal” through technology. It’s eerily similar to the rhetoric we hear today from the likes of “Don’t Die” gurus like Bryan Johnson.

Like Shelley, del Toro is making his Frankenstein in the context of rapid technological change, at a time when “playing God” via technology is happening in matters of birth (IVF, “designer babies”), death (biohacking and transhumanism), and knowledge (AI’s ability to approximate godlike omniscience). The specter of AI is in the background here. Just as Victor fails to think through the possible consequences of his technological creation, so too do the “tech bros” (as del Toro calls them) move recklessly fast in the AI arms race, “creating something without considering the consequences.”

Shelley’s novel’s warning of technology becoming our master has disturbing relevance in today’s “technopoly” world. (“You are my creator, but I am your master; obey!” the creature says to Victor, a line the film riffs on). Del Toro’s adaptation wisely foregrounds the story’s technological critique, which feels especially urgent.

Monster Is the Maker

Spoilers follow. In keeping with del Toro’s other films, the monstrous creature in Frankenstein ends up being more friendly than fearsome, a tragic character who had no say in being made. The film’s real “monster” is Victor, the arrogant creator whose irresponsible, selfish act of creation (“I never considered what would come after creation”) results in misery for the being he made.

This adaptation wisely foregrounds the story’s technological critique, which feel especially urgent.

Some viewers might be surprised by how much of del Toro’s film is narrated from the creature’s point of view. But this is faithful to the novel. What’s different is how much more sympathetic the creature is, and how villainous Victor is, in del Toro’s telling. In the novel, the creature starts out innocent but is corrupted and ends up becoming a vengeance-driven, scary, homicidal menace who intentionally kills several main characters. The creature even admits his own depravity (“It is true that I am a wretch; I have murdered the lovely and the helpless.”).

In del Toro’s film, the creature basically stays innocent. He’s an empathetic friend to other outsiders, has no natural menace, and only accidentally kills Victor’s brother, William (Felix Kammerer). In one notable change, the character Elizabeth (Mia Goth) dies in the film at the hands of Victor, whereas in the novel, she’s strangled to death by the creature. This choice reinforces del Toro’s point: Victor is the true monster of this story.

Sure, Elordi’s creature does intentionally kill a handful of sailors who are shooting at him. But if he acts in violence, del Toro suggests, it’s understandable given how cruelly he’s been treated. His traumatic origin story justifies his destructive behavior—a common theme not only in del Toro’s films but in the many other “villains reconsidered” movies like Cruella, Wicked, and Joker.

In framing Victor—the godlike “creator”—as the most depraved villain, del Toro is also channeling his anger at the God of Christianity. Why would God create us only to see us suffer in such a terrible world? To del Toro, God’s answer to Job (38:4) is insufficient, even cruel. Job’s “Why?” plea to God is “the plea of [Frankenstein’s] creature too.” Why create us as eternal beings with the high likelihood of experiencing never-ending suffering? For del Toro, a God like that is irresponsible and cruel.

Eternal Life a Curse?

One key difference between this film and Shelley’s novel becomes clear in the final scenes. The creature in the novel is supernaturally resilient but not clearly immortal; he vows at the end to kill himself on a funeral pile (“My ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds”). In del Toro’s movie, the creature tries to kill himself but can’t die. He’s immortal, and his eternal life is portrayed as a curse from his creator, not a blessing.

Del Toro’s final shot is beautiful and haunting, capturing the tragedy of a creature relegated to a lonely existence for eternity (he has no “Eve” companion, even though he asked his maker for one). As the creature stands alone on the cold ice, looking to the rising sun with a tear in his eye, he faces the light with almost Stoic acceptance. The film ends with a poignant quote from Shelley’s friend, Romantic poet Lord Byron: “And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.”

Del Toro told NPR that he thinks of eternal life as torment, which is why he’s a “huge fan” of death: “I think [death is] the metronome of our existence. And without rhythm, there is no melody. . . . It is the metronome of death that makes us value the compass of the beautiful music.”

Christians agree that there’s real value in remembering death and that the quest to conquer death is folly (epitomized in Victor Frankenstein and carried on today by “tech bros”). But we disagree with del Toro that death is simply a reality to accept and in no sense a problem to be solved. Just because we can’t conquer death in our own power doesn’t mean the sting of death isn’t real; it doesn’t mean death isn’t still an enemy someone needs to vanquish. Jesus Christ can and did vanquish it (1 Cor. 15:55–57), and his victory is eternal life for all who believe (John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47).

Just because we can’t conquer death in our own power doesn’t mean death isn’t still an enemy someone needs to vanquish.

One truth the ending of del Toro’s Frankenstein captures is that eternal life alone—separated from our creator—would indeed be hellish. In Christian theology, eternal life is a blessing for those who believe, because we’ll be with our Creator, experiencing in his presence the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11). But never-ending life cut off from love and communion is indeed a curse. The film’s ending gives a potent glimpse of this.

Discussion Fodder

Del Toro is both a master craftsman and a thoughtful artist. His Frankenstein is gorgeously rendered, if gruesome at times (the film’s R rating comes primarily from gore and violence, and brief nudity). But even more than its artistic craft, the film is full of big ideas worth talking about.

They aren’t all necessarily good ideas, as we’ve seen. Del Toro seems to think God is cruel and needs our forgiveness, not the other way around. His post-Christian instincts lead to an appreciation of forgiveness, selfless love, and sacrifice, while removing any transcendent source of these virtues. It’s not at all clear what “how shall we now live?” implications flow from del Toro’s vision here, beyond a vague “be kind to one another.”

Still, it’s rare to see a big-budget, well-made spectacle film like this that’s so theologically curious. Shelley may not love all the changes del Toro makes to her story, but she’d probably be proud that her Gothic tale is still sparking important, timely reflections more than 200 years later.