Gothic horror influences have rippled through Guillermo del Toro ’s incantatory work since the Mexican fantasist burst onto the scene with Cronos , The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth . The writer-director’s encounter with Mary Shelley’s immortal 1818 novel has been a long time coming and after too many screen adaptations to list, it feels like a lightning-charged act of reanimation. The genre-defying craftsman’s sumptuous retelling of Frankenstein honors the essence of the book in that it’s not so much straight-up horror as tragedy, romance and a philosophical reflection on what it means to be human.

Gothic horror influences have rippled through Guillermo del Toro ’s incantatory work since the Mexican fantasist burst onto the scene with Cronos , The Devil’s Backbo

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