Guillermo del Toro & Me – Back to the Classics
There’s something in the air. After years of Frankenstein adaptations that have modernized, technologized, and reshaped Mary Shelley’s creation, the story is reflecting back to its origins. Guillermo del Toro’s highly anticipated Frankenstein film is set to arrive this year, the same year as my novel Mademoiselle Frankenstein. They share something crucial: a return to the classical, Gothic spirit of the original.
Victor Frankenstein’s laboratory according to Guillermo del Toro
For decades, Frankenstein’s monster has been pulled into every imaginable time period and setting—cyberpunk dystopias, military experiments, corporate labs, and sci-fi thrillers. He’s been a hacker, a government weapon, a tragic antihero in neon-lit futures. While some of these reinterpretations have been fascinating, there’s been a drift away from the core of Shelley’s novel: the raw human emotion, the existential dread, and the profound loneliness of both creator and creation.
Océane Frankenstein’s lab, according to Robin Solit
Guillermo del Toro, a filmmaker known for his love of monsters, has long admired Frankenstein and has called the novel “one of the greatest books ever written.” His adaptation is expected to embrace its 19th-century origins, reflecting not just the aesthetics of Shelley’s world but also its themes—loss, obsession, and the hubris of human ambition. My approach in Mademoiselle Frankenstein has been similar: instead of reimagining the tale in a futuristic setting, I set it in the Revolutionary War, a time of upheaval, political tension, and scientific curiosity that mirrors Shelley’s era. More than just period accuracy, the focus is on the emotional depth, the philosophical weight, and the inevitability of tragedy that makes Frankenstein so enduring.
Why Now? The Swing Back to the Classical
Why are Frankenstein retellings coming full circle? Part of it is the cycle of storytelling—after years of deconstructing a myth, there comes a desire to reconstruct it, to look back at what made it resonate in the first place. Another reason may be that Shelley’s original themes—man’s fear of his creation, the consequences of unchecked ambition, and the loneliness of the outcast—feel more urgent than ever.
We live in an age of artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and technological leaps that would have seemed impossible in Shelley’s time. Yet, instead of needing to push Frankenstein further into the future, perhaps the most powerful way to tell the story now is to return to its Gothic roots. The past has a way of feeling like a prophecy.
With both del Toro’s film and Mademoiselle Frankenstein arriving in 2025, it’s clear that audiences—and creators—are craving a return to the atmospheric, haunting world that Shelley first envisioned. A world where the Creature isn’t just a monster, but a being searching for meaning. A world where science and grief collide in ways that can never be undone. A world where the past refuses to stay buried.
What is your favorite Frankenstein adaptation? Do you have ideas for one that hasn’t been done before?
