By Zoe Luczaj | Special to the NB Indy
The Newport Beach Film Festival concluded its 2025 slate on Thursday, Oct. 23 with Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited “Frankenstein,” a nearly three-hour gothic epic that filled both the historic Lido Theater and the Regal Edwards Big Newport screens.
The screening marked the film’s final festival appearance ahead of its global Netflix release on November 7.
Del Toro, whose earlier works include the Oscar-winning “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006) and 2018’s Best Picture winner “The Shape of Water,” brings a deeply personal and meticulously constructed vision to Mary Shelley’s classic novel, having spent nearly 20 years in development.
Faithful to the source material’s roots, “Frankenstein” examines not only the terror of creation but also the aching, longing, and broken humanity of both creator and creature. Despite its length, “Frankenstein” holds the audience spellbound for its entire run time.
Its twin chapters of visceral horror and unlikely beauty cast a spell over the audience.
In the “Frankenstein” canon, much depends on the creature, and Jacob Elordi delivers a performance that soars to the heights of Boris Karloff’s in the 1931 “Frankenstein,” bringing an otherworldly grace and gravity to the role in one of the major highlights of a multifaceted and elaborate film.
Equal parts somber and restrained, Elordi’s physicality commands attention and sympathy, an effective foil to Oscar Isaac’s spirited turn as the haughty and arrogant Victor Frankenstein. Across from both, Mia Goth delivers a disquieting and compelling dual performance as Victor’s mother and as his unrequited love, embodying the story’s central themes of nature and nurture.
Visually, “Frankenstein” is an utter feast of the senses. Working once again with cinematographer Dan Laustsen and production designer Tamara Deverell, del Toro constructs both chapters of the film as its own handwoven gothic fairy tale. Every scene is rendered in lavish, spellbinding color, with art direction and production design that blend classic Hollywood monster-movie style with the elegance of mid-century Gothic cinema, a testament to del Toro’s noted cinephilia and love of genre history.
Victor’s tower is a distinct marvel. Resting somewhere between a mausoleum and a museum, the set itself thrums, whirs, and churns with outsized ambition, perfectly reflecting the inner turmoil of its primary inhabitant, the titular Frankenstein. The film is also full of other horribly beautiful grotesqueries, rendered through ingenious practical effects that instill terror and awe in equal measures.
Make no mistake: much like Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, the film is more than the sum of its parts. Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” may be his most ambitious work to date, a visually arresting, intimate, and methodical rumination on life, death, creation, destruction, and those who choose to blur the lines.
Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is currently streaming on Netflix.
