5 Frankenstein-Inspired Movies to Stream Before Guillermo del Toro’s Take Arrives

The spooky season might be coming to its official end on the Halloween night, but some new movies coming to streaming in November are about to make this year’s celebration a little bit longer.

Having already premiered in select theatres on October 17, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein will finally be released on Netflix on November 7, which, ironically, might mark the arrival of the best horror movie of the year a week after the scariest night of the year.

Anyway, the wait won’t be that hard with several more movies alike to give a watch to, especially since Mary Shelley’s novel went on to inspire quite many monster movies, let alone serve as a source material for endless adaptations.

‘Poor Things’ (2023)

• On Rotten Tomatoes, Poor Things holds scores of 92% and 80% from critics and viewers
• On IMDb, the movie is rated 7.8/10

Another brilliant collaboration of eccentric filmmaker Yorgos Lantimos and sometimes not less eccentric Academy Award winner Emma Stone, Poor Things unfolds a plot pretty similar to the one of Frankenstein.

Also starring Willem Dafoe as some kind of Victor Frankenstein, the movie follows Bella Baxter, a creature with a young woman’s body and an unborn baby’s brain who embarks on a voyage across the peculiarly built world in an attempt to find her own purpose in life.

Poor Things had an impressive run at the 2024 awards season, sweeping major awards like 4 Oscars and 2 Golden Globes, with two statuettes going to Emma Stone in the Best Actress category.

Blade Runner (1982)

• On Rotten Tomatoes, Blade Runner has scores of 89% and 91% from critics and audiences
• On IMDb, the movie rates 8.1/10

Ridley Scott’s sci-fi masterpiece is often hailed as one of the best movies ever made, and in this case it’s also Shelley’s story that needs to be credited.

Starring Harrison Ford in one of his essential roles, Blade Runner follows Rick Deckard, a former police officer who is back on track after the duty forces him to continue doing his job as Replicant Hunter.

Just like Victor Frankenstein who goes on a hunt for the creature he revived himself, Rick will do whatever it takes to keep the nation safe from the escaped replicants — right until the moment he starts realising that those machines have their own purposes too.

Frankenweenie (2012)

• On Rotten Tomatoes, Frankenweenie keeps scores of 87% and 70% from critics and viewers
• On IMDb, the movie’s rating is 6.9/10

One of Tim Burton’s heartwarming animated movies, Frankenweenie goes back in time with Victor Frankenstein’s story, imagining the protagonist’s life before he got to be a mad scientist.

Featuring a prominent voice cast, the movie centres on young Victor who might not be popular at school, but at least he’s a forever favorite of his beloved dog called Sparky.

A series of unfortunate events leads to a tragedy when Sparky dies after being hit by a car, leaving Victor desperate to bring his best friend back no matter what.

After a school lesson about electricity’s capability to revive a creature, Victor is determined to carry out the experiment, though the result, despite being successful, provokes another series of weird events with even scarier consequences.

The Terminator (1984)

• On Rotten Tomatoes, The Terminator holds scores of 100% and 89% from critics and audiences
• On IMDb, the movie is rated 8.1/10

Much before James Cameron’s Titanic and Avatar came along, the director proved he’s a real movie industry leader with The Terminator starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Somehow inspired by the central themes of Shelley’s work, the movie, which was later followed by a myriad of sequels and spinoffs, follows an eponymous character who, disguised as a human, time-travels from the future to kill Sarah Connor, whose yet unborn son is known to become a leader of the movement against an artificial intelligence system called Skynet.

However, Sarah gets a backup just on time, which eventually makes her and her protector to embark on a quest to survive and destroy the Terminator.

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

• On Rotten Tomatoes, Edward Scissorhands has scores of 90% and 91% from critics and viewers
• On IMDb, the movie rates 7.8/10

The gothic romantic drama might be Tim Burton’s most personal work according to himself, but it’s also kind of an homage to Shelley’s theme exploring the fate of a creature brought back to the life they don’t know how to lead yet.

Starring Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder, Edward Scissorhands follows the eponymous character, an unfinished artificial humanoid with scissor blades instead of hands, who is suddenly taken from his home (aka that haunted mansion on the hill) to live with a suburban family.

Initially awkward about pretty much everything in his new life, Edward gets used to it with the support from his family and neighbours, only to realise that he can’t have the only thing that he really wants — the love of his new family’s teenage daughter.