Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein stormed into the 82nd Venice International Film Festival with the kind of reception that turns premieres into milestones: reports from the Lido say the film drew an approximately 13-minute standing ovation, the kind of roar usually reserved for era-defining festival debuts.
The Netflix production centers Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as the Creature, with Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, and Christoph Waltz rounding out a prestige ensemble. Early reactions praise the film’s painterly craft, Alexandre Desplat’s score, and a muscular, empathetic re-read of Mary Shelley’s immortal tale.
What Premiered in Venice — and Why the Crowd Kept Standing
Venice audiences are famous for long ovations, but they still have to be earned. First reactions from major outlets describe a work that swivels the classic from shock to soul: del Toro frames the Creature as a deeply human being navigating a hostile world, while Victor’s arrogance becomes the film’s true engine of horror. That shift, echoed across reviews, helps explain the groundswell in the Sala Grande — the movie aims not just to frighten, but to move.
Cast and Characters: A Prestige Ensemble
At the center is Oscar Isaac as the brilliant, blinkered Victor — a performance critics say is grandly expressive — and Jacob Elordi as the Creature, whose gentle curiosity and wound-deep loneliness form the film’s emotional spine. Around them: Mia Goth (whose genre bona fides are already legendary), Felix Kammerer (carrying over the haunted intensity that broke out in All Quiet on the Western Front), and Christoph Waltz, among others.
The lush orchestration comes from Alexandre Desplat, pairing with del Toro again to give the film an aching, romantic sweep.
First Reviews: A Visually Sumptuous, Emotion-Forward ‘Frankenstein’
Critics are aligned on the surface beauty: meticulous production and costume design, practical sets you can practically smell, and a period world photographed with tactile richness. Some reviews note that the early going can feel like “spectacle first, feeling later,” but repeatedly emphasize how Elordi’s Creature pulls the film into intimate, beating-heart territory. In that view, this Frankenstein is less a monster movie than a tragic bromance about creation, rejection, and responsibility.
Not About AI — and Del Toro’s Viral Quip
Given our algorithmic present, you could forgive viewers for assuming the film might play as an AI parable. Del Toro shot that down at Venice, saying his film isn’t an AI metaphor. Then he delivered the line that ricocheted across social: “I’m not afraid of artificial intelligence — I’m afraid of natural stupidity.” The point wasn’t just to dunk on the discourse; it telegraphed the film’s true obsession: human choices, human cruelty, and the unprogrammable need for love.
Release Plan: When and Where You’ll See It
After Venice, Frankenstein moves to a limited U.S. theatrical rollout in October before a global Netflix debut in November. If you want a single, straight-from-the-festival report with dates, see this Reuters festival dispatch. (Link opens in a new tab.)
Why This Adaptation Feels Timely
Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel might be the first great modern story about runaway invention. But del Toro’s spin resists techno panic and instead re-centers something older and rawer: the wound created when a maker denies his made. That’s why the Creature’s perspective is crucial here. Through his eyes, Victor is both father and fugitive, a genius who abdicates the most basic duty of care.
Reviews suggest this empathy-first framing, paired with the director’s tactile craft, is what makes the movie land so hard in the room. It’s not simply “Who’s the real monster?” — it’s “What happens when love is withheld at the moment it’s needed most?”
The Craft: Flesh, Fabric, and a Score That Bleeds
Del Toro’s team — including cinematographer Dan Laustsen and composer Alexandre Desplat — reportedly crafts a world of varnished woods, stitched fabrics, and copper-green curios that feel salvaged from a 19th-century laboratory. The look suits del Toro’s avowed preference for practical builds over sterile CGI.
In the auditorium, these choices matter: texture translates into presence, presence into emotion. Add Desplat’s strings and winds — generous, aching — and you have a film determined to be felt as much as admired.
Jacob Elordi’s Creature: The Performance Everyone’s Talking About
For a part shadowed by Boris Karloff’s legacy, Elordi’s task is brutal: be iconic without imitation. Early notices say he threads that needle by leaning into vulnerability. His Creature reportedly staggers, learns, listens — a giant moving like a man brand-new to being alive. That the performance is already being framed as the film’s “soul” speaks to how decisively it re-centers the myth around a being who didn’t ask to be born.
Oscar Isaac’s Victor: Hubris With a Human Face
Isaac’s Victor is the other half of the duet. Some critics find his choices grandly theatrical, others see a purposeful mask — a virtuoso who only ever rehearsed triumph, never consequence. However you read it, Isaac gives Victor the magnetism that explains both his brilliance and his blind spots. When the film pits creator and creation in moral combat, the drama plays like two reflections wrestling for ownership of a single soul.
How Long Is the Ovation Really?
Festival lore loves stopwatch numbers. Reports peg the Venice applause at around 13 minutes, a marathon by any measure (some chatter puts it even higher). Whether you read those numbers as sport or signal, they at least tell us this: the room was moved, and moved for a long time.
Will It Play for General Audiences?
That likely depends on whether people want Shelley’s pain more than jump scares. Early takes suggest del Toro chases big feelings over shock — a choice that could make the film a crossover for viewers who love gothic romance as much as horror. With a fall theatrical tease and a November streaming bow, audiences will have both a premium-screen option and a couch-night rendezvous to test that theory.
The Takeaway
After years of dreaming about it, del Toro has finally made Frankenstein his battleground for love, responsibility, and the costs of creation. It’s a story that predates our silicon age and will outlast it, and in Venice, a packed house stood to say it still matters. If the festival buzz holds — and if word of mouth locks on to Elordi’s tender, towering Creature — this could be the rare awards-season entry that also becomes a late-year streaming event.
