Ever since the mad scientist Frankenstein cried, “It’s alive!” in the 1931 classic film directed by James Whale, pop culture has never been the same.
Few works of fiction have inspired more adaptations, re-imaginings, parodies and riffs than Mary Shelley’s tragic 1818 Gothic novel, “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus,” the tale of Victor Frankenstein, who, in his crazed quest to create life, builds a grotesque creature that he rejects immediately.
The story was first borrowed for the screen in 1910 — in a single-reel silent — and has directly or indirectly spawned hundreds of movies and TV shows in many genres. Each one, including Guillermo del Toro’s new “Frankenstein,” streaming on Netflix, comes with the same unspoken agreement: that we collectively share a core understanding of the legend.
Here’s a look at the many ways the central themes that Shelley explored, as she provocatively plumbed the human condition, have been examined and repurposed time and again onscreen.
“I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.”— Victor Frankenstein, Chapter 3
The Mad-Scientist Creator
Shelley was profuse in her descriptions of the scientist’s relentless mind-set as he pursued his creation, his fixation on generating life blinding him to all the ramifications.
Sound familiar? Perhaps no single line in cinema has distilled this point better than in the 1993 blockbuster “Jurassic Park,” when Dr. Ian Malcolm tells John Hammond, the eccentric C.E.O. with a God complex, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Among the beloved interpretations that offer a maniacal, morally muddled scientist is “The Curse of Frankenstein” (1957), the first in the Hammer series.
“Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” (1994), directed by Kenneth Branagh, is generally considered the most straightforward adaptation of the book.
More inventive variations include the flamboyant Dr. Frank-N-Furter, who creates a “perfect man” in the 1975 camp favorite “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
In Alex Garland’s 2015 thriller, “Ex Machina,” a reclusive, self-obsessed C.E.O. builds a bevy of female-like humanoids.
And in the 1985 horror comedy “Re-Animator,” a medical student develops a substance that revives dead tissue.
Then there are the 1971 Italian gothic “Lady Frankenstein” and the 2023 thriller “Birth/Rebirth,” in which the madman is in fact a madwoman.
“With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.”— Victor Frankenstein, Chapter 5
The Moment of Reanimation
Shelley is surprisingly vague about how her scientist actually accomplishes his task, leaving remarkable room for interpretation. In a conversation with The New York Times, del Toro explained that he had embraced this ambiguity as an opportunity for imagination, saying, “I wanted to detail every anatomical step I could in how he put the creature together.”
Filmmakers have reimagined reanimation again and again. See Mel Brooks’s affectionate 1974 spoof, “Young Frankenstein,” which stages that groundbreaking scene from Whale’s first movie in greater detail.
Other memorable Frankensteinian resurrections include the 1987 sci-fi action movie “RoboCop,” when a murdered police officer is rebooted as a computerized cyborg law enforcer.
In the 2012 Tim Burton animated “Frankenweenie,” a young scientist revives his beloved dog by harnessing lighting.
And in the 2019 psychologically bleak thriller “Depraved,” an Army surgeon, grappling with trauma, pieces together a bundle of body parts known as Adam.
“Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?”— The creature, Chapter 15
The Wretched Creature
In Shelley’s telling, the creature has yellow skin, flowing black hair, white teeth and watery eyes, and speaks eloquently, but is otherwise unimaginably repulsive, allowing us to fill in the blanks. Del Toro envisions an articulate, otherworldly being with no stitches, almost like a stone sculpture.
It was Whale’s 1931 “Frankenstein” — based on a 1927 play by Peggy Webling — and his 1935 “Bride of Frankenstein” that have perhaps shaped the story’s legacy more than the novel. Only loosely tethered to the original text, these films introduced the imagery that continues to prevail: a lumbering monster with a block head and neck bolts, talking like a caveman.
In Tim Burton’s 1990 modern fairy tale “Edward Scissorhands,” a tender humanoid remains unfinished when its creator dies, leaving it with scissor-bladed prototypes for hands.
In David Cronenberg’s 1986 body horror, “The Fly,” a scientist deteriorates slowly into a grotesque insectlike monster after his experiment goes wrong.
In the 1973 blaxploitation “Blackenstein,” a Vietnam veteran who lost his limbs gets new ones surgically attached in a procedure that is sabotaged.
Conversely, in some films, the mad scientist’s experiment results in a thing of beauty: as in “Ex Machina” and Pedro Almodóvar’s 2011 thriller, “The Skin I Live In,” in which an obsessive plastic surgeon keeps a beautiful woman imprisoned in his home.
And in Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2023 sci-fi dramedy, “Poor Things,” a Victorian-era woman is brought back to life after her brain is swapped with that of a fetus.
“I am an unfortunate and deserted creature; I look around, and I have no relation or friend upon earth.”— The creature, Chapter 15
The All-Consuming Isolation
The creature in “Frankenstein” has become practically synonymous with the concept of isolation: a beast so tortured by its own existence, so ghastly it repels any chance of connection, that it’s hopelessly adrift and alone.
What’s easily forgotten in Shelley’s tale is that Victor is also destroyed by profound isolation, though his is a prison of his own making. Unlike most takes on the story, there is no Igor-like sidekick present for the monster’s creation. Victor works in seclusion and protects his horrible secret, making him complicit in the demise of everyone he loves.
The theme of the creator or the creation wallowing in isolation, physically and emotionally, is present across adaptations. In Steven Spielberg’s 2001 adventure, “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” a family adopts, then abandons a sentient humanoid robot boy programmed to love.
In the 2003 psychological horror “May,” a lonely woman with a lazy eye who was ostracized growing up resolves to make her own friend, literally.
And in the 1995 Japanese animated cyberpunk “Ghost in the Shell,” a first-of-its-kind cyborg with a human soul struggles with its place amid humanity.
“Shall each man find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone?”— The creature, Chapter 20
A Desperate Need for Companionship
In concert with themes of isolation, the creators and creations contend with the idea of companionship in most “Frankenstein”-related tales — whether romantic, familial or societal.
In the novel, Victor’s family and his love interest, Elizabeth, are desperate for him to return from his experiments and rejoin their lives. When the creature demands a romantic partner and Victor reneges, the creature escalates a vengeful rampage.
That subplot is the basis for Whale’s “The Bride of Frankenstein,” which does offer a partner, though there is no happily ever after for either.
Sometimes the monster finds love with a human, as in “Edward Scissorhands” or the 2024 horror romance “Lisa Frankenstein,” in which a woman falls for a reanimated 19th-century corpse.
In plenty of other adaptations, the mission is to restore a companion who once was. In the 1990 black comedy “Frankenhooker,” a science whiz uses the body parts of streetwalkers to bring back his fiancée, also Elizabeth, after she is chewed up by a lawn mower.
In John Hughes’s 1985 comedy, “Weird Science,” a couple of nerdy teenage boys watch Whale’s 1931 classic and decide to create a beautiful woman to elevate their social standing.
While the plot can skew sexual — as with “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “Ex Machina” and “Frankenhooker” — it can also skew poignant. In the 1991 sci-fi action blockbuster “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” a fatherlike bond forms between a troubled teenage boy and the cyborg sent to protect him.
Or the creature may be part of a wholesome, albeit freakish, family, most famously in the hit 1960s shows “The Addams Family,” with Lurch as the family’s block-headed butler, and “The Munsters,” with Herman Munster as a nearly identical replica of Whale’s creature.
In Shelley’s novel, the creature devotes itself to secretly observing the blind man and his family as they bond over music and stories. While sitcom families like the Munsters and the Addamses may seem silly by comparison, it’s a life that Shelley’s creature could only have dreamed of — and in fact did.
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