Vanity Fair gave Guillermo del Toro fans a first look at the director’s upcoming Frankenstein adaptation on Thursday, and onlookers have come to a unanimous conclusion: This movie looks like a damn mid-’90s PC adventure game (complimentary), right?
Will Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein actually look like a ’90s PC adventure game?
This is not a burn!
Photo: Ken Woroner/Netflix
Michael McWhertor is a journalist with more than 17 years of experience covering video games, technology, movies, TV, and entertainment.
Everything about the shot oozes interactive full-motion video point-and-click adventure, from the angle to the lighting to the giant green vats to the corpse dummy that looks unnaturally superimposed into the shot. The pic is begging to have a hand-shaped mouse cursor and ornate graphical UI Photoshopped over it. It’s giving Myst, Gabriel Knight, and Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster starring Tim Curry as Dr. Frankenstein vibes. But it is not — most likely — what the final film will look like.
The weird-looking shot of Frankenstein provided by Netflix to Vanity Fair is a behind-the-scenes photo, not a frame from the film. That’s why there’s a huge camera crane and boom mic looming over Oscar Isaac, who’s playing Dr. Victor Frankenstein in del Toro’s new movie.
But who’s to say that del Toro hasn’t been increasingly informed by video game aesthetics over the past decade? He’s good pals with video game creator Hideo Kojima and previously worked on two canceled horror games: Konami’s Silent Hills and THQ and Volition’s Insane. And there are worse aesthetics to adopt or be compared to when discussing video games like Myst 4: Revelation and Sanitarium.
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein will no doubt be sparkling with gothic flare, much like Crimson Peak, when it’s released in 2025. It’s coming to Netflix, but del Toro has confirmed that his take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein will also get a theatrical release.
Frankenstein stars Isaac as Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi as his monster, Mia Goth as Frankenstein’s fiancee Elizabeth, and Christoph Waltz as Dr. Pretorius. del Toro’s adaptation also stars a bunch of great weirdos and intense character actor guys like Charles Dance, Burn Gorman, Ralph Ineson, and David Bradley.
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