FRANKENSTEIN. Were anyone to ask (why would they?), I would have said, even minutes ago, that I first read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus when I was far too young to appreciate its form and content. My bookshelf has made a liar of me, though, yet again: The copy found there is a Norton Critical edition, oft dog-eared by some previous, more assiduous reader (no one in this house; we were raised by librarians and do not mutilate books). This suggests, then, that I was actually tasked with studying the text in my perhaps misspent years as an English major. My relative lack of familiarity therewith tells another tale, but depression and a certain level of literary charisma (read: bullshit) may have allowed me to skate by without actually putting in the work.
Whether I cracked the thing in childhood or merely avoided doing so a decade later, this is clearly not one of my formative texts. The iconography is as ingrained as any, though, and I was fairly obsessed with the Crestwood House monster books (more a product of the filmic adaptations than any source material) as a child. But the adaptation of these archetypal texts remains, to me, generally more exciting than the texts themselves. I looked to Shelley and Bram Stoker with a head already full of bolted necks lightning bolts and Stephen King’s advanced (if iterative) re-inventing of literary horror, seeking immersion and abject terror. The strictures of the epistolary form and the Briton primness of the day occluded my engagement, though, and I went on to more accessible, immediate, probably dumber objects of fascination.
Guillermo del Toro, on the other hand, well-established as a higher mind and student of Gothic horror, seems to have been imprinted early and permanently by Shelley’s tale of hubris and the denial of death; now we have his version.
Because del Toro is so garrulous and fun-loving, so passionate about the work he is lucky enough to do for pay, I approach everything he makes with an assumption of positive intent. I wantto like his movies, even when that desire overpowers my actual experience of them, which may be the case here. There is much to commend and recommend in Frankenstein, marked as it is by del Toro’s customary, lavish attention to detail and ability to attract top-tier talent to his projects. The movie is sumptuously arrayed, executed on a grand scale, presumably faithful to the text and intently incisive in its exploration of themes. Still, and I am hard-pressed to explain precisely why, it left me a little cold.
It certainly isn’t for bloodlessness, as this adaptation shies not from some of the more gruesome aspects of assembling a person from the constituent parts of others. Nor does it hesitate to show us in great detail the effects of violence, as wrought by man and “monster” alike. And it isn’t for any failure of casting, as Oscar Isaac (playing Victor) seems the perfect actor’s analog to del Toro’s gleefully weird director. Game for anything, he is more than willing to chew the scenery for effect, a tendency that can yield mixed results but which suits this material ideally. And Jacob Elordi, as the doctor’s tortured creation, brings a lithe physicality and contemplative woundedness to the character that, regrettably, erodes my preexisting contempt for his enviable physical stature.
But the second act of the piece drags, with its set-pieces and violent flare-ups serving more to prolong the long stretches when they are absent than to punctuate them, that the mind wanders and the emotional connection to the narrative suffers irreparable damage. Most distracting of all, though, is Dan Lausten’s too-clear digital photography, which, for its occasional and undeniable beauty, creates a motion-smoothed, backlit effect that plays against the tremendous production design and costuming. Maybe it’s because I know this is a Netflix presentation, but I don’t think so. More that del Toro and his director of photography are (to their credit) employing technology that allows for greater flexibility and mobility but that, to my formalist eye, degrades the inherent and necessary velveteen darkness of the material. R. 149M. NETFLIX.
BUGONIA.Everyone should see Bugonia. Many will hate it, perhaps even among the Yorgos Lanthimos faithful. But it is as challenging, as nuanced and as disturbing as anything the great and prolific director has made.
More conventionally structured than Kinds of Kindness (2024) but closer to our known world than Poor Things (2023) or The Favourite (2018), it is a propulsive, dread-inducing paranoid kidnapping drama about mental health, big pharma, sexual abuse and, maybe, visitors from another galaxy.
Gorgeously shot, with a booming orchestral score and the types of performances Lanthimos’s collaborators are so eager to give, it is the work of a modern master: a brutal splatter-fest, a meta-commentary and, not least of all, a comedy … with severed heads. R. 118M. BROADWAY, MINOR.
John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.
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BLACK PHONE 2. Scary sequel for the kids, now teens, getting supernatural calls and pursued by the masked Grabber (Ethan Hawke). R. 114M. BROADWAY.
BUGONIA. Emma Stone as a CEO kidnapped by conspiracy theorists. With Jesse Plemons. R. 118M. BROADWAY, MINOR.
CHAINSAW MAN – THE MOVIE: REZE ARC. Finding love, sprouting chainsaws and fighting demons in an anime adventure. Dubbed or subtitled. R. 100M. BROADWAY, MINOR.
CHRISTY. Sydney Sweeney gets in the ring as boxer Christy Martin. R. 135M. BROADWAY.
DIE MY LOVE. Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattison star in a drama about a writer losing her mind in a remote house. R. 118M. BROADWAY.
THE CHRISTMAS RING. Holiday romance with a widow and a lost ring for the Hallmark crowd. 103M. BROADWAY.
NUREMBERG. Drama about a psychiatrist (Rami Malik) evaluating Hermann Goring (Russell Crowe) for trial back when America was charmingly anti-Nazi. PG13. 148M. BROADWAY.
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER. Locally filmed comedy/action/drama with Leonardo DiCaprio in Humboldt drag as an ex-revolutionary single dad searching for his daughter. R. 161M. BROADWAY, MINOR.
PREDATOR: BADLANDS. TKTK. BROADWAY (3D).
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ROCKY IV (1985). The one with Drago (Dolph Lundgren). PG. 91M. BROADWAY.
SARAH’S OIL. Based on the true story of an African American girl who struck oil. PG. 103M. BROADWAY.
SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Boss biopic starring Jeremy Allen White. PG13. 119M. BROADWAY.
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VIRGIN PUNK: CLOCKWORK GIRL. Anime adventure about a bounty hunting young woman. 35M. BROADWAY.
For showtimes, call Broadway Cinema (707) 443-3456, Minor Theatre (707) 822-3456.
This article appears in Klamath River Ecosystem Booming One Year After Dam Removal.