Funny how these things work out. I was pretty sure I had run out of candidates for this particular feature and then look what happens! A Dracula* AND a Frankenstein movie arrive within a year of each other. Both critically acclaimed, big budget adaptations directed by genuine auteur directors. Bats versus Bolts is back from the dead like a…what’s a good analogy. A mummy? Sure, that works.

So join me in what promises to be a real knock-down drag out fight. Robert Eggers 2024 Nosferatu versus Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein. FIGHT! (Oh, and spoilers past this point).

The Adaptations

Not exactly a fair comparison here. del Toro is doing an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel which is, in broad strokes, fairly close to the original next. Certainly one of the more faithful adaptations we’ve covered here. Eggers, by contrast, isn’t in conversation with Stoker at all, except inasmuch as he’s in conversation with Murnau who was in conversation with Stoker. So, playing a 127 year old game of Chinese whispers with Stoker.

As a remake of the nineteen twenties original, Nosferatu 2024 is exceedingly faithful, following the story almost beat for beat. Of course, now we have exciting new innovations like “dialogue” which allows new wrinkles and themes to be woven into the structure of the original. The big addition that Eggers makes is SEX, returning the eroticism of Stoker’s story and ramping it up way past anything that Murnau could have gotten away with even in Weimar-era Germany, by far the sexiest of all Germanies.

To be honest, purely as stories, neither movie is entirely satisfying to me. Nosferatu is a little too simple, and Frankenstein makes adaptational changes that ultimately make the story feels less satisfying to me for reasons I’ll get into below.

Okay, well, which one is better as horror? Which movie has better atmosphere?

Nosferatu. Not even close.

WINNER: BATS

The Monsters

Let’s get the good out of the way first, and trust me there is a LOT of it.

For starters this is, bar none, the most visually faithful depiction of Mary Shelly’s (admittedly scant) physical description of the monster. Big, scarred, golden eyed, beautiful, and not a bolt or flat top in sight.

Secondly, Jacob Elordi’s performance is now right up there with Karloff’s for me. He is stunning. His physicality is phenomenal and he brings a beautiful wounded innocence to the creature. His scene with the blind old man (David Bradley) moved me in a way that the same scene in other versions has never done. If ever there was a movie that was carried close to greatness by a single performance, it’s this one. I love this monster, and it’s clear that Guillermo del Toro does too. But unfortunately…I think that kinda ends up hurting the film. Here’s why.

Now, it’s not unusual for a version of Frankenstein to be sympathetic to the monster. Hell, I can’t think of a single version I’ve seen where the monster is not depicted as someone more sinned against than sinning, right back to the original novel. And sure, if anyone is going to make a movie where your root for the monster it’s going to be Del Toro. But I have never seen a version that so absolutely refuses to engage with the uglier parts of Shelley’s character. Literally every evil thing the monster does in the novel is either given to Frankenstein (like killing Elizabeth), recontextualised so he’s acting in clear self-defence or omitted entirely. No little girls dying in this one, I can tell you that much. Hell, even the monster trying to convince Frankenstein to make him a companion is dropped almost as soon as it’s mooted. I half expected the monster to say “wait, creating a female to be my mate would violate her agency and rights, how could I even think of doing such a thing?”

The point of the character in the book is he did evil because the world treated him with evil. But…he did do evil. He killed innocent women and children. And by removing pretty much any negative actions or qualities from the monster, the story becomes flatter, less challenging and less rich to grapple with. It just becomes the story of a poor perfect boy whose Dad was a colossal asshole.

As well as being beautiful and noble and good and innocent and just the cutest little woobie, this monster is by far the most powerful version ever depicted oncreen outside of that one movie where he fought a knock-off Godzilla.

This monster can push an entire ocean vessel and has a healing factor that Wolverine would be proud of. And frankly, if it wasn’t for Elordi’s insanely rich and charismatic performance holding it all together, it would start feeling more than a little fan-ficcy.

Nosferatu, by contrast, goes running right in the other direction.

Bill Skarsgard’s Count Orlock is, in his own words, “an appetite”. Pure, carnal hunger. Not a trace of charm or camp here. More nakedly sexual than any other screen Dracula (this one hangs dong) he is also paradoxically the least sexy. He is a wheezing, emaciated rotting corpse. With a moustache.

Like most Dracula adaptations (hell, let’s be honest, like the original book) the strongest section of the movie by far is following the young lawyer on his journey to Dracula’s castle and feeling the menace tighten around your throat like a vice. The more we actually see of Orlock, the less interesting he becomes. Which is not to say that Skarsgard is bad, at all, or that this is not a valid take. But Elordi is doing something generational here.

WINNER: BOLTS 

The Scientists

As a result of Del Toro putting his thumb so firmly on the scale, just as we got probably the purest monster, we must also have possibly the single most loathsome version of Victor Frankenstein ever seen in a major film.

Note that I don’t say “the most evil”, because Peter Cushing’s Doctor was a full-on super villain (and we loved him for it). What I mean is that you are not meant to look on Oscar Isaac’s Frankenstein as anything other than the most contemptible louse of a man. Everything from the makeup to the way he’s shot goes out of its way to make Isaac (a very beautiful man) look like some kind of gremlin.

Every cruelty and flaw of the original character is turned up. Instead of examining dead bodies, we see him assessing living prisoners waiting their turn on the gallows like he’s at a butcher shop picking out the best cuts. His presentation of his work to the university of Ingolstadt is very deliberately presented as a 19th century AI tech demo. Y’know, just in case you needed another reason to hate him.

In the original novel, Frankenstein creates the creature, freaks out when he actually does and flees the lab, returning the next day only to find the monster has gone. Which, granted, doesn’t paint him in the best light. Del Toro’s Frankenstein however, is at first overjoyed at his success. But, after trying to care for the monster (in scenes that are very deliberately coded as looking after a severely developmentally challenged child) he becomes increasingly over-tired and frustrated and starts viciously abusing the monster. Then, because Elizabeth prefers the monster to him, he frames him for the murder of her father (oh yeah, he killed Elizabeth’s father we’ll get to that), and traps the monster in the lab AND sets fire to it. By the end you’re thinking “okay Guillermo, we get it. He SUCKS.”

You know what I just realised? Abraham Van Helsing is one of the most colourful and distinctive character in the original novel and yet we almost never get a book-faithful depiction. Hilariously, I think the actor that came closest is probably Mel Brooks! Well, despite the fact that he is playing a character named Albin Eberhart Von Franz, Willem DaFoe is probably a strong contender for most faithful depiction of Abraham Van Helsing. Brilliant, eccentric, kind, noble and ever so slightly mad.

Perfect. No notes.

WINNER: BATS

The Dashing Young Men

Frankenstein introduces a new character, Henrich Harlander played by Christof Waltz, a munitions magnate who’s become fabulously wealthy due to the Crimean War and bankrolls Victor’s experiments. This is a great addition, as it gives us an explanation as to how Victor Frankenstein, med school dropout, is able to afford a fucking DOOM FORTRESS.

Going back to the Tech Bro motif, Harlander is the billionaire financing Frankenstein so that he’ll build him a new body because he’s dying of the dreaded pox, the Spanish disease, Aphrodite’s curse, la lues…

But Frankenstein didn’t create a beautiful big man just to give him a syphilitic brain and ends up accidentally killing Harlander in a struggle and later blaming the monster for his death. Reminder, he is absolute scum.

The only other major male character of note is Victor’s younger brother William played by Felix Kammerer who gets injured in a melee when the monster shows up at his wedding and dies in his brother’s arms after telling him “you’re the monster”.

Over in Nosferatu land, Nicholas Hoult as Hutter gives a great performance but let’s be honest, when does that dude not deliver? Aaron Taylor Johnson gives a great performance as Hutter’s wealthy friend Harding who collapses into madness from the sheer horror of Nosferatu’s assault on his family. And then there’s Ralph Ineson (who is bloody stalking me as he also appeared in Fantastic Four AND Frankenstein 2025) who plays the Seward-analogue Doctor Sievers with a deep voiced gravitas that you can feel in your jellies.

WINNER: BATS

The Perpetually Imperilled Ladies

Foofur was an animated series created by Hanna-Barbera between 1986 and 1987 following the adventures of a blue bloodhound and his canine friends.

It was blandly terrible, and is almost totally forgotten except by weird animation obsessives like me.

Which is why I am at a loss as to why the costume department decided to homage the series with Mia Goth’s outfit in Frankenstein.

Sorry, I will get to the character in a second but my God the costumes they saddle this woman with. It was taking me every ounce of strength as a queer man to not stand up in the middle of the cinema and yell “oh honey NO!”

Anyway, this is certainly a unique take on Elizabeth in that she never actually has a romantic relationship with Victor at any point and, in fact, for a majority of the run time actively loathes him. She is instead the fiancee of his younger brother William. When she meets Victor first they develop something of a friendship over a shared love of etymology, but when he makes a pass at her (because the dude is scum) she shuts him down and their relationship is never anything close to amicable again. You might think this makes her a more empowered character but…it really doesn’t. Firstly, she’s written in a way that makes it impossible to see her as anything more than del Toro’s self insert, giving long declamatory speeches on the themes of the film and Frankenstein’s flaws as a person (same thing really). And, she is still utterly defined by her relationship to Frankenstein, it’s just now that relationship is antagonistic. Oh, and she’s totally in love with the monster because, as I said, del Toro self-insert.

Sorry, I feel like this review is coming across a lot more negative to Frankenstein than I intended. I guess it’s just that the things I tend to talk about most in these reviews (differences from the source material, characters) are the areas where I have the most issues with. It’s a sumptously beautiful film, a worthy addition to the canon, certainly a fascinating take and well worth your time. But it’s got flaws.

Rating Liy Rose Depp’s performance as Ellen Hutter is one of the hardest things to talk about because it is often quite bad when it is not being one of the single greatest pieces of acting I’ve ever scene. This is an actress who can’t make me believe she is walking on a beach having a conversation with her friend but can make me believe with every fibre of my being that she is possessed by the Devil and would quite like to be fucked until the bed breaks.

It is an enthralling, terrifying, utterly mesmerising piece of physical acting the likes of which only comes along once in a blue moon. And Depp is such an eerily beautiful, other-worldly presence in front of Egger’s camera that it really does not matter a tinker’s curse if some of her dialogue scenes feel flat or fake. No one else could do this.

If I have an issue with this character it’s that it feels like the movie is going for a feminist re-telling of the original story (they mention corsets, that was my first clue). But…here’s the thing. In the original novel Mina defeats Dracula. She does it as part of a team, working with men who love and respect her, but she is an active agent in her own deliverance from Dracula, overcoming him with her own intelligence, fortitude and bravery.

Ellen Hutter 2025 defeats Orlock by letting him come and fuck her and feed on her until the sun comes up and they both die.

I kinda feel like that’s a step backwards.

WINNER: BATS

Are either of these movies actually, y’know, scary?

I find Nosferatu genuinely unsettling, certainly in its first half.

Why would would I be scared of del Toro’s monster? I want to give him a Twix and tell him it’ll all be okay.

WINNER: BATS

Best Dialogue:

In the the scene where Victor is assessing the prisoners on the gallows he smells one’s breath, grimaces and says:

“You’re lucky! You would have been dead in a year!”

God, he is the worst.

For Nosferatu, I do love Harding’s brusque

“I’m a ship-man”.

when Doctor Sievers tries to give him a basic primer on Alchemy and the Occult.

WINNER: BOLTS

FINAL SCORE: Bats 5, Bolts 2

NEXT UPDATE: November 13th 2025

NEXT TIME: Sight. I have TWO more requests to do (freedom is so close now).