Halloween may be over, but Guillermo del Toro resurrected one of literature’s most famous monsters. His latest Netflix film, Frankenstein, which, he’s emphasized, is not a horror, was in progress for years, and it has charmed audiences with its tribute to the original novel by Mary Shelley. But how does the movie compare to the 1818 book?
Leading up to the release of his film, Del Toro said Shelley’s work was his “Bible,” but he “wanted to make it my own, to sing it back in a different key with a different emotion,” the filmmaker told Netflix’s Tudum. “Mary Shelley’s masterpiece is rife with questions that burn brightly in my soul: existential, tender, savage, doomed questions that only burn in a young mind and only adults and institutions believe they can answer.”
Most modern adaptations of 19th-century classics emphasize the old era, which Del Toro didn’t want. “When [Shelley] wrote Frankenstein, it was not a period piece. It was a modern book, so I didn’t want you to see a pastel-colored period piece,” the director explained.
Here, News47.us compares Del Toro’s movie with Shelley’s original Frankenstein novel.
Victor’s father, Alphonse, is a loving and generous father to Victor in the book, and he dies of grief.
In the movie, however, Victor’s father is an abusive doctor named Baron Leopold Frankenstein, who practically loathes his eldest son and wife, Baroness Claire Frankenstein. Leopold instills in Victor that he must maintain his legacy as a Frankenstein and raises him to be a surgeon.
Victor’s mother in the book is named Caroline, and she dies of scarlet fever. In the film, the mother’s name is Baroness Claire Frankenstein, and she dies a violent death while giving birth to her second son, William.
