Frankenstein

Frankenstein (2025) is a Gothic science-fiction horror film written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, based on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. Oscar Isaac stars as Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but obsessive scientist whose attempt to conquer death leads him to create a living being from dead human bodies. Jacob Elordi plays the Creature, while Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Felix Kammerer, Charles Dance, David Bradley, Lars Mikkelsen, Ralph Ineson and Burn Gorman appear in supporting roles. Del Toro’s version treats the story less as a simple monster tale and more as a tragic relationship between creator and creation, built around grief, ambition, abandonment, guilt and the need to be understood. The film combines Gothic melodrama, period drama, body horror and large-scale fantasy, with a visual world shaped by decaying anatomy theatres, grand family estates, icy wilderness, storm-lashed coastlines and laboratory architecture.

Frankenstein was filmed across Canada, Scotland and England, using a mixture of real historic locations, large studio sets and digital extensions to create its 19th-century world. Ontario provided much of the controlled production work, including the Arctic material, the laboratory and the Creature’s later forest scenes. The polar exploration ship Horisont was built in Toronto’s Port Lands, while the frozen wilderness was filmed around Lake Nipissing near North Bay. Victor Frankenstein’s laboratory was largely created as a studio-built environment in the Toronto area, with the tower base constructed at Markham Agricultural Fairgrounds and its design influenced by Scottish Gothic architecture. Scotland gives the film many of its most distinctive exterior locations. Edinburgh’s Old Town appears through Canongate, Bakehouse Close, West Parliament Square and Makars’ Court, creating the dark medical and academic world where Victor pursues his early ambitions. Acheson House, home of the Museum of Edinburgh, is connected to Victor’s residence, while Seacliff Beach in East Lothian is used for the coast where the Creature emerges after escaping the destroyed laboratory. The Frankenstein family estate is a composite of several great houses, including Gosford House in East Lothian, Dunecht House in Aberdeenshire, Wilton House in Wiltshire and Burghley House in Lincolnshire. Hospitalfield House in Arbroath stands in for Henrich Harlander’s residence, while Glasgow Cathedral was used for church interior material. By combining Canadian studio construction, Scottish cities and coastlines, English stately homes and digitally expanded landscapes, Frankenstein creates a world that feels European and Gothic without belonging to one single real country. Its locations reflect the film’s central contrast between human ambition and natural scale: grand houses, anatomy rooms and laboratories stand against ice fields, forests, cliffs and stormy seas.