Del Toro's Frankenstein: When Your Character Build Gets a 'Hot Patch' and Changes the Whole Game
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
Guillermo del Toro's new *Frankenstein* film subverts expectations by making the Creature, played by Jacob Elordi, surprisingly 'hot' and sculptural, reframing the classic tale as sci-fi/romantic melodrama rather than horror, and prompting reflections on creation, hubris, and the 'AI age'.
Right, so you know that feeling when a new game trailer drops, and you're expecting the same old tropes, but then the devs just absolutely yank the rug out from under you? Well, Guillermo del Toro just pulled that move, but with *Frankenstein*, and honestly, it's wilder than a rogue AI trying to achieve sentience by farming NFTs.
I’ve been tinkering with the news coming out of Polygon, courtesy of Oli Welsh, and bloody hell, del Toro’s take on Mary Shelley’s classic is a genuine curveball. Forget your pitchfork-wielding villagers and hunchbacked horrors; this Creature is, dare I say it, *sculptural*. And yes, apparently, ‘hot’. It’s enough to make you wonder if the monster just popped out of a character creation screen where someone cranked the 'Aesthetic' slider to eleven.
Now, traditionally, adaptations of Shelley’s 1818 Gothic masterpiece often try to play the 'faithful restoration' card. Kenneth Branagh famously tried it back in '94, riding the coattails of Coppola's *Dracula*. His Creature, played by a pitiable Robert De Niro, was erudite, philosophical, but still very much the grotesque we’ve come to expect. A classic tank build, if you will, but with a tragic backstory perk.
Del Toro, bless his mad genius heart, has opted for a radically different approach. He raised more than a few eyebrows – mine included – by casting 28-year-old Australian actor Jacob Elordi as the Creature. Elordi, a certified tall drink of water (as Oli Welsh so eloquently put it), isn't exactly known for his monstrous visage. My initial thought? 'Fair dinkum, what's he playing, the handsome villager who gets eaten?' But nah, del Toro and his art and makeup teams leaned *into* Elordi’s beauty, rather than trying to disfigure it. It’s like they decided the Creature's 'ugly' stat was actually a misread, and he just needed a graphical overhaul.
The result? A Creature that’s less 'abominable experiment' and more 'living marble statue'. Smooth, defined musculature, clean curving seams on marble-white skin. At first, he’s hairless and almost naked, looking like something Michelangelo would sculpt if he’d had access to BioShock’s genetic splicers. This aesthetic choice is brilliant for the period setting. Instead of a madman's grotesque, del Toro frames him as a product of the Age of Enlightenment – the dangerously idealistic dream of a perfectionist. It’s like a game’s lore entry: 'Subject Zero: Designed for optimal function, perhaps too perfect for this imperfect world.'
Elordi’s sheer height (6 feet 5 inches in his stocking feet!) helps immensely, too. Shelley’s novel describes the Creature as 8 feet tall, and while Elordi isn't quite that, he easily rivals Boris Karloff in his iconic platform shoes and full monster makeup from the 1931 classic. Elordi uses that height to incredible emotional effect, creating distance, looming, and sometimes even delivering brutal action scenes that apparently borrow from superhero cinema rather than traditional horror. Imagine a new character class, the 'Philosophical Bruiser', who’s as good at introspective monologues as he is at throwing NPCs across the room.
As the film progresses, Elordi’s Creature evolves from a wordless innocent into a brooding, 'sad boy' type, complete with long, lank hair and sweeping, ragged furs. He’s simmering with rage at his existence, but still, apparently, quite attractive. This leans perfectly into del Toro's love for tragic love stories where abused creatures find redemption, often with a 'Romeo & Juliet' vibe. It sounds occasionally preposterous, but according to Welsh, Elordi carries the movie with 'subtlety and grace' – far more effectively than a seemingly miscast Oscar Isaac, who reportedly overacts as Victor Frankenstein. It’s a classic case of the supporting character stealing the show, isn't it?
What’s particularly interesting, especially for those of us who ponder the deeper implications of digital creation and emergent systems, is how del Toro’s *Frankenstein* shifts genres. It’s not really a horror movie, despite its Gothic extravagance and occasional gore. Shelley’s novel was always closer to the origins of hard sci-fi and speculative fiction than pure horror, and del Toro amplifies that. The moral questioning – ‘You are the monster!’ being an actual line, apparently – is front and centre. But del Toro being del Toro, he also amps up the romantic melodrama, crafting a rather sweeping love-quadrangle.
This shift, and the idea of a created being potentially 'better' than its creator, really resonates in our current tech-forward landscape. As Oli Welsh notes, 'What if the new life we create in our hubris is just… better than us?' It’s a cracker of a question, isn't it? Whether we're talking about AI, or complex, self-sustaining ecosystems in a metaverse, or even just particularly well-developed player-driven narratives, the line between creator and creation gets blurrier all the time. And the ethical implications? That’s a whole new game loop right there.
So, while del Toro’s *Frankenstein* might not be a horror flick in the traditional sense, it’s certainly a thought-provoker, pushing boundaries and making us reconsider what a 'monster' truly is. And honestly, for a film to make us question our own hubris in an 'AI age' while featuring a 'hot monster'... well, that’s just good storytelling, mate.
*This article was inspired by and repurposed from 'Frankenstein's monster is hot in Guillermo del Toro's new movie' by Oli Welsh, originally published on Polygon.*
Tags: Gaming Culture, Film Adaptation, Speculative Fiction, Character Design, AI Ethics
Original article: Polygon