Director Guillermo del Toro adapting Mary Shelley’s iconic novel “Frankenstein,” seems a match made in cinema heaven. With del Toro’s trademark dark style and Shelley’s 1818 novel setting the bar that gothic fiction has been attempting to match for more than two centuries, when Netflix confirmed the project, I was invested before seeing a single frame.
“Frankenstein” is now streaming on Netflix (as of Nov. 7), but after watching the movie for myself in theaters late last month, I can’t help but think an awful lot of viewers are going to consume this gothic epic in a way that del Toro perhaps didn’t intend. Its stunning visuals and meticulous production design are where this movie shines, and unless you have a home cinema worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, those strengths will only be blunted by streaming it at home. Even one of the best TVs can’t match a cinema.
