Frankenstein

[Drunk Monk]

Frankenstein. This fall. From Guillermo Del Toro.

Del Toro’s fresh take on the classic has some wonderful moments of his signature surreal gothic horror. I particularly liked Victor’s angel visions, as well as the overall color schemes which were blown to comic book tones. It was a tad longer than I would’ve preferred - some of the ideas lingered too long. And the preposterous of it all kept nibbling at the back of my brain. But BdT’s style lent itself well to the tale and his twists were appreciated. There’s some gruesome moments that exemplify the body horror genre. And the sheer supervillain ultravi of the fight scenes was tasty for the connoisseur of splatter - the jaw ripping off scene sticks out in my mind but there were many more. Isaac was a sconce over the top in his portrayal but it sorta works. Overall, i was entertained. It definitely had some fine BdT scenes. 

If you’re into this classic story & del Toro, it’s a total D00M recommendation.

[Greg]

It's in the Queue.

[Drunk Monk]

I'll be interested in your take on it. Ultimately, I found it a tad longwinded but I have a soft spot of BdT's work so I hung in there. There was some striking cinematography and some cool looking sets that might garner your praise (or maybe it was all CGI). 

I would've enjoyed it more if it came out prior to Halloween.

[Greg]

From what I heard, GdT wanted practical sets as much as possible. This made the budget for CGI low which resulted in, I have heard, some poor CGI moments.

[Greg]

Why do you keep using BdT? Inquiring minds want to know.

Seen it. I think it should win the Oscar for Production Design, maybe cinematography. A lot of it looked great. But as DM said, it was long. Long. Long. Long. But it didn't feel too bad. The movie kept moving. And there wasn't a lot of horror. There were a few sanguineous bits but I think the movie leaned more heavily into melodrama than anything else. The most scared I was in the film was when Elizabeth first meets the creature. I thought for sure bad things were going to happen.

The movie makes me want to read the book to see how faithful was the adaption. I kept asking myself how was this in the book.

One thing that was odd to me was I don't know where they were in the world. The lab was supposed to be in Scotland. Yet, it seems like Victor is getting bodies from a French-German battlefield. And when the creature wanders off, he ends up on the Russian Steppes. And how do you walk to the Arctic from Scotland?

In the end, the film was fine. Very much a companion to Del Toro's Crimson Peak.

[Drunk Monk]

Why do you keep using BdT? Inquiring minds want to know.

Fair question. Either I miskeyed and my spelchuk just went with it (it does that - feckin spelchuk) or I confused Benicio with Guillermo. By now, you should know that I do most of my posting here as I'm winding down from the day, on the edge of falling asleep, and keying with my clumsy thumbs. Plus I have to abide by all these formal rules of writing with my profession, so I indulge creative grammar and spelln with y'all. 

In the end, the film was fine. Very much a companion to Del Toro's Crimson Peak.

I still have yet to see that. Maybe next halloween.

[King Bob]

I agree that it was a bit too long. And some story elements were introduced that were pointless - the rich guy bankrolling him, the abusive father. If those were cut it would be much better. The creature's part of the story was reasonably close to the book, more so than most versions. He did pretty well with the creature helping the peasant family and learning to read. It looked great too.

I also recommend Crimson Peak. I enjoyed it.