If you were expecting scares from Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming Frankenstein film, it’s time to temper your expectations. In fact, according to the man himself, this is far from a horror movie — it’s an “emotional story.”
“Somebody asked me the other day, does it have really scary scenes?” del Toro explained during a Cannes Film Festival conversation with composer Alexandre Desplat. “For the first time, I considered that. It’s an emotional story for me. It’s as personal as anything. I’m asking a question about being a father, being a son… I’m not doing a horror movie — ever. I’m not trying to do that.”
Desplat also noted that the film’s score will complement the tonal landscape del Toro set out to achieve. “Guillermo’s cinema is very lyrical, and my music is rather lyrical too,” he said. “So I think the music of Frankenstein will be something very lyrical and emotional… I’m not trying to write horrific music.”
According to Variety, the pair have yet to finish the film’s score, but things do seem to be moving in a symbiotic direction. “We’re finding the emotion,” del Toro revealed of their progress. “And what I can say is, for me, it’s an incredibly emotional movie.”
At this point, del Toro is known for crafting a profound sense of empathy toward othered characters, so ultimately, it makes sense that he would want to take that approach with one of the most misunderstood horror icons of all time. “In The Shape of Water, the creature is frightening during the first 15 minutes and then becomes a very moving character,” Desplat explained during the conversation. In response, del Toro spoke of a classic film moment that made him want to tell these kinds of stories.
“The first time I thought I was going to avenge the creature was when Marilyn Monroe is coming out [of the movies] in The Seven Year Itch with Tom Ewell, and she says the creature just needed somebody to like him,” del Toro revealed. “I fell in love with Marilyn, and I fell in love with the creature in that scene at a very early age. And I thought, you know, all we have is people that look at people the wrong way. That’s what we have in this world.”
Frankenstein, which is set to be released on Netflix in November of this year, is an adaptation of the classic 1818 Mary Shelley novel and stars Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, and Ralph Ineson. Though we should expect the film in November, it still does not have an official date on the books just yet. TBD on that one, but we’re excited to see what del Toro has up his sleeve after 20 years of development.
Photo by Ken Woroner.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
