First Posters for Del Toro’s Frankenstein

There’s a strange electricity in the air when Guillermo del Toro drops new imagery. His Frankenstein posters—one bathed in laboratory decay, the other swallowed by arctic desolation—don’t just advertise a film. They whisper of obsession, hubris, and loneliness so cold it could crack bone.

The timing is surgical. Frankenstein will world premiere at Venice next week, then stop at Toronto in September. Noticeably absent from Telluride and NYFF, this one feels like a statement—Netflix and del Toro choosing where to plant their flag. And yes, the platform’s strategy is written in bold red: October 17 in select theaters, November 7 on Netflix. Oscar eligibility secured.

Del Toro, never one for half-measures, has stacked the cast with Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, and Christoph Waltz—actors who don’t just play characters but devour them. Add Lars Mikkelsen, Ralph Ineson, and Charles Dance to the mix and you’re staring down the barrel of a monster that breathes performance as much as prosthetics.

The runtime is 150 minutes. Long, yes. But doesn’t that feel right for a filmmaker who lingers on shadows, textures, and faces just a second longer than polite? A two-and-a-half-hour gothic hymn to Mary Shelley’s nightmare makes sense. Whether it lands will depend on how much blood and grief del Toro can wring from his canvas.

The posters themselves set the tone—one rooted in science and myth (a figure silhouetted against humming machines, Medusa-like stone faces watching from the walls), the other trudging across frozen wastes, burdened by ragged furs and solitude. Creation and consequence. Fire and ice. That duality was always the marrow of Shelley’s novel, and it seems del Toro wants to keep it intact.

Anyway—let’s not pretend we’re not already counting days. Venice will either crown this monster or shove it back into the dark. But the posters alone? They already feel alive.