We live in a time when the quality of a book is often judged by its adaptability to audiovisual formats, or we learn about stories through the films or series that have been made about them. That's what happened to me with Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus I knew Mary Shelley's novel from its first film adaptation in 1931, with Boris Karloff playing the creature, or from the hilarious version by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks in 1974. Since Guillermo del Toro released a new, captivating film this year, I finally decided to read Mary Shelley's original story and decide for myself whether I prefer the book or the movie (I need to find out if Mr. Noriguis's Morgan Freeman has already trademarked this line; I'm sure he has).

Guillermo del Toro He is an accidental Prometheus. A filmmaker who loves the fantastic unconditionally, but who has achieved a prestige and access to budgets that his B-movie masters didn't even dare dream of, turning his own labors of love in definitive manifestos that, without intending to, challenge the memory of their references. It is logical, then, that the Mexican director has materialized a version of Frankenstein Longer, more romantic, and more bombastic than any previous adaptation of Mary Shelley's book… But with a sense of wonder dwarfed by the industrial logic of Netflix, entirely uninterested in iconic posterity.

Eight years after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for The Shape of WaterGuillermo del Toro returned to the show today, ready to repeat the success with his version of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. And, from the outset, it must be said that these two sinister fables directed by the Mexican share a gothic aura, the Shakespearean reference of Romeo and Juliet and a Christian background. "For me, the story of Frankenstein "It's been like a religion," Del Toro confessed at the film's press conference. "I was raised Catholic, but as a kid, I didn't really understand what a saint was. But then I discovered Boris Karloff playing the monster, and I understood what a messiah was." Del Toro had been trying to make his version of that horror myth for more than two decades, and he directed it when he had "the means to make it on the scale I wanted to make," "and now that it's finished, it's my turn."Pan's Labyrinth.