Guillermo del Toro’s long-gestating passion project, Frankenstein, stunned audiences at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival with an emotionally overwhelming 13-minute standing ovation, one of the most prolonged and heartfelt in this year’s edition. The response moved both del Toro and actor Jacob Elordi to tears.
Unlike any horror remake before, this reimagining taps into emotional marrow. While initially feeling like a visually lavish gothic spectacle, with body parts, blood, sweeping sets, and Alexandre Desplat’s stirring score, the film’s heart surfaces in Jacob Elordi’s nuanced creature, whose awakening redefines the entire experience. His performance imbues Shelley’s creation with profound humanity.
Del Toro’s adaptation also reframes the narrative schema by positioning humanity’s true monstrosity within Victor Frankenstein, played by Oscar Isaac, whereas the Creature emerges as the story’s emotional core. The film’s allegory of outsider identity resonated quietly and powerfully in Venice’s screening hall.
Elordi spoke openly at the festival about the personal resonance of the role, calling the Creature “the purest form of myself,” and admitting that enduring a daily 10-hour makeup routine was a small price to pay for such a profound transformation.
This project has been decades in the making. Del Toro revealed that the idea was buried in his childhood dreams since seeing Frankenstein as a boy, and called it “the project he’s been preparing for his entire career.”
Among the festival’s heavy hitters, like films from Kathryn Bigelow, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Park Chan-wook, Frankenstein emerges as both a visual feast and a haunting centerpiece; it’s now in the running for Venice’s top honor, the Golden Lion.
What’s next for this gothic marvel? It will begin its limited theatrical release on October 17, before reaching global Netflix audiences starting November 7, primed to be a must-see for genre enthusiasts and cinephiles alike.
