Although the first reactions to Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein were decidedly mixed following the movie's world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last week, the fan-favorite filmmaker's adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic novel still managed to land a decent enough score on Rotten Tomatoes.
More reviews have been added since, and Frankenstein now sits at a very respectable 81% on the aggregator.
RT's system is notoriously flawed, however, and it's difficult to escape the feeling that quite a few critics - even those who did award the movie a "Fresh" rating - came away disappointed.
Reviews aside, there's still plenty of excitement for this film among horror fans, and EW has now shared some new promo stills featuring Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), and his love-interest Elizabeth Lavenza (Mia Goth).
"When we first find [Victor], he is this ragged man at the end of the Arctic. He is terrified. He is running. You don't know if he's running away or running through something or what's going on," Isaac says of his take on the story's tormented protagonist. "As Victor tells his tale, he begins with his father and his own creation. 'How was I created? How was this person created? And if I'm gonna tell you about this horrible secret that I have, I must tell you how it got there. And that's with my own father.'" So when Guillermo and I first met, that's what we mostly talked about. We didn't even talk about Frankenstein."
Victor's obsession with cheating death leads to the creation of a nameless "Monster," who will be brought to life by Jacob Elordi.
"They are a mirror of each other. They're just these twin things, much like what his story's about: The way that a father passes on to a son, and that son becomes a father and passes it on to his son, and the way these circles just keep going and keep going," Isaac says. "At the end, this heartbreak happens, and this forgiveness happens. And the hope is that this creature, who's all set up to create chaos and violence, somehow stops that and changes it all."
Frankenstein centers on a brilliant but egotistical scientist (Oscar Isaac) who brings a creature (Elordi) to life in an experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.
“This film concludes a quest that started at age 7, when I saw James Whale’s Frankenstein films for the first time. I felt the jolt of recognition in that seminal moment: Gothic horror became my church, and Boris Karloff my Messiah,” del Toro said in a statement when the project was first announced.
Frankenstein will receive a limited theatrical release on Oct. 17, and a global bow by Netflix on Nov. 7.