ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - FRANKENSTEIN (2025) Ending Explained and Breakdown - What did Del Toro Change?

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

ScreenCrush The Podcast tackles all the movie and TV hot topics, offering reviews and analysis of Marvel, Star Wars, and everything you care about right now. Hosted by Ryan Arey, and featuring a panel of industry professionals.

Hey, welcome back Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie, and let's talk about the ending of Guillermo del Toro's magnum opus Frankenstein. Now, this movie is an adaptation of one of the most famous books ever written, but it does take some creative liberties, especially with the ending. So let's break down the similarities and differences and how their personal lives influence their storytelling and answer the most important question of all. Is this a good adaptation? Let's get into it. Now, like I said, the ending of Shelley's Frankenstein and Del Toro's Frankenstein are very different. The book ending is way darker, and no worries if you haven't read it, so let me give you a quick recap. Much like in the movie, Victor Frankenstein chases the creature all the way back to the Arctic.

But unlike the movie, Frankenstein and the creature never actually meet. Frankenstein gives his whole live story to Captain Walton, and then he just dies. No heartfelt moment, no apologies, no closure at all. After his death, the creature breaks into the ship because he wants to ask Frankenstein to forgive him. Now, of course, he finds that his creator has already passed. He says, in his murder, my crimes are consummated. What does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee by destroying all thou lovest. Now, feeling immensely guilty for causing the destruction and with no way to be forgiven, he vows to kill himself. The last lines of the book are, the creature sprang from the cabin window as he said this, up on the ice raft which lay close to the

vessel. He was born away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance. Oh, that's really a sad person. I know, and it's dark. And the tragic ending is definitely reflective of Mary Shelley's own life, but we'll get to that in a second. Del Toro, though, gives us an ending where they worked it out. The creature isn't too late, and both him and Frankenstein are absolved. And with this, the creature is freed. He gets to live. So, instead of running into the dark, like he does in the book, he walks into the light. So why would Del Toro change the ending so much? Because for both Shelley and Del Toro, this story is deeply personal and reflects their personal lives. Is Mary Shelley's biography in that book and is my biography in this film?

Shelly originally published Frankenstein anonymously, and, even when she later took credit, she was often sidelined in her own creation. In fact, people insinuated that she was merely a conduit for the men around her. It wasn't until Ellen Moore's 1974 essay, Female Gothic, The Monster's Mother, that Frankenstein was re-contextualized in terms of Shelley's own experience. And the ending of the novel is so much richer when you know Mary Shelley's personal history. Shelly was the daughter of two literary powerhouses, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. She never knew her mother, though, because she died when she was only 11 years old. And Shelley had a rocky relationship with her father growing up. At 16, she ran off with a married man, Percy Shelley, and her father cut her off completely.

Most importantly, Shelly was a very young mother. Moore's writes, nothing so set Shelley apart than her early and chaotic experience. At the very time, she became an author with motherhood. When Shelley was only 17, she gave birth to an illegitimate baby that died at only two weeks old. And this had a profound effect on her, and based on her own diary entry, it at least partially inspired Frankenstein. On March 19th, 1815, she wrote, dreamed that my little baby came to life again, that it had been cold, and that we had rubbed it before the fire and it lived, awake and find no baby. I think about the little thing all day, not in good spirits. It took her nine months to write Frankenstein, and it was an extremely emotionally turbulent time.

Her highs were high, but man, her lows were low. She had a new baby that was healthy. She married her lover and she became pregnant again. However, in the same time period, two people close to her took their own lives. Her half-sister overdosed, probably because she discovered that she was a bastard. The next suicide in her life was also driven by social scandal. Remember, at this time, Mary was still Percy Shelley's mistress. Despite being completely emotionally and physically separated, Percy's legitimate wife was Harriet Shelley. And Harriet, upon discovering she was pregnant from her own affair, drowned herself. And the impact of these events are seen in the ending of Frankenstein.

Society tells the creature that he is a monster, and he indeed. internalizes that feeling. It's this belief that drives his suicide. He says, blasted as Frankenstein was, my agony was still superior to thine, for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to wrinkle in my wounds until death shall close them forever. He's been so utterly and completely rejected that he believes he must die. The ending reflects what young Shelley saw around her, a world in which the mere possibility of societal rejection could end in tragedy. She dealt with a lot of pain in her life, and the reason her writing resonates is because we can all relate to that on some level. We all have different ways to cope.

And like Shelley, Del Toro lets his own life and experience influence Frankenstein's ending. Yeah, but you transmute. You don't translate. You transmute. Del Toro isn't trying to make the perfect version of Shelley's Frankenstein because that's already been done. She did it when she wrote the book. Instead, he's trying to make his perfect version of Frankenstein. His ending reflects the themes most important to him,

such as the relationship between father and son. uses the film as a sort of confessional. I found it a great way to talk about me and my dad. And then as the years past, I found that it was a great way to talk about me and my dad and me and my kids. Taking another creative liberty, Del Toro focuses on Frankenstein continuing a legacy of trauma. His father doesn't understand him because he looks and acts differently. Frankenstein doesn't understand the creature because he can't speak immediately. Frankenstein's father uses pain to teach him medical terminology.

Frankenstein hits the creature in an attempt to teach him English. And most importantly, like his own father, he is too narcissistic to see anybody else's perspective, until the end. Yeah, if this whole thing is about passing on trauma, why do they work it out? Well, their reconciliation was inspired directly by a conversation between Del Toro and his own father. His father, Guadalupe, won the lottery when Del Toro was six. Overnight, they became uber wealthy and moved into a giant mansion. Then, right after he leased his first film, Cronos, Guadalupe was kidnapped and held for ransom.

And fun trivia fact, you know who paid that ransom? James Cameron. Unsurprisingly, the kidnapping deeply affected Del Toro, but for a long time, they didn't address it. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he said, When my father came back, he didn't talk about it. And then, before he passed, I said, we have to sit down and you've got to tell me what happened. Del Toro said that it was that conversation that allowed him to finally understand his father. And that is a direct parallel to his ending of Frankenstein. For the first time, these two hear each other's perspectives.

Frankenstein finally understands the creature he created, much like Del Toro finally understood his own father. It unfreezes his heart and his point of view, and he's actually able to recognize it not only as human, but as his own son in some way. Now, obviously, Shelley and Del Toro are very different people, and, in this reconciliation, it's clear that Del Toro's age influences how he approaches the story.

In the original text, you can feel Shelley's youthfulness. Somebody said, it's a miracle that Mary Shelley wrote this when she was a teenager. teenager, that's the only time she got written. That's what the brilliance of the book is that. On the other hand, Del Toro's life experiences shine throughout this film. He doesn't have the same youthful rage that Shelley has. Instead, he's at a stage in his life where he wants peace and forgiveness. In that same interview with Entertainment Weekly, he actually says, I thought I could make the movie, but then I went, no, thank God it didn't happen until now. Is that why the creature forgives Frankenstein? Yes, and it's actually a reverse from the book. When the creature breaks into the boat,

he intends to ask Victor for forgiveness, but he can't because he's dead. The unfulfilled apology only adds to the tragedy of the story. Del Toro flips this on its head by having Frankenstein ask the creature for forgiveness. Now, if it was a direct reversal, the creature would be unwilling or unable to forgive him, but Del Toro doesn't do that. He knows that wouldn't solve anything, because when the creature forgives Victor, even if he doesn't deserve it, he is finally free. The creature doesn't forgive Victor's sake, but he forgives him for his own sake. And that leads perfectly into the final frame in the movie, Frankenstein looking out into the sun. This shot is the most autobiographical in the entire film. Simply put, it's a love letter to the creature

Mary Shelley created and a visual statement of Del Toro's own philosophy. Del Toro had a lifetime infatuation with Frankenstein. He describes his first exposure to the story as a nearly religious experience. During an interview with variety, he said, I thought, that's me. It was a religious and spiritual moment for me. As a kid, I was very Catholic, and I thought I was seeing, a saint or a figure of myth that represented me. Now, later in the interview, he also says that every movie he's made had the DNA of Frankenstein within it. No pun intended.

The creature made Del Toro feel comfortable with being, in his own words, strange. Monsters tell you, look, it's okay to be you. It's okay to sweat. It's okay. It's to be imperfect. You can forgive yourself for that. And that's part of the universal appeal of monsters. For some people, monsters are just scary things that go bump in the night.

They are an amalgamation of fears. But for others, for people who feel out of place, for people who feel strange, monsters are relatable characters. They provide us a way to be seen. I always had this affinity towards the great universal monsters, probably being a boy who felt like he was not particularly good looking and felt like a freak. Now, when Frankenstein steps into the light, it represents the comfort he's brought and continues to bring to all the other weirdos and freaks out there.

Instead of running into the dark, the way he does in the novel, they can step into the light. They can live. Wow, it's kind of beautiful that this monster that Mary Shelley created in a really dark time in her life became a beacon for other people who felt like they didn't fit into the world. It really is. So Del Toro's final shot reinforces Frankenstein status as a patron of weirdos. And this also goes hand in hand with Del Toro's general philosophy

on strangeness and humanity in general. His message to the world is, let everyone be as weird as they want. But in reality, we're all weird in some way. And it's not the weird that is bad. It's the fact that we say that the weird is bad. Now, because his film reflects his own life and philosophy, I think that's a very true adaptation.

What do you mean? It's so different. Well, it's not an exact adaptation, but it's true in spirit. Shelley's novel reflects the turbulence in her own life and the question she was grappling with at the time. Her tragic ending directly reflected the tragedy around her. Deltoro knew a film adaptation of Frankenstein needed the same personal touch that novel possessed. He always knew that he could never.

get Mary Shelley's exact perspective because they're very different people. So he didn't try to portray her perspective. Instead, he worked in the same ethos as Shelley. He made it personal. He let it be his. And that's why it works. It's true to the essence while also being different in some of its content. Big shout out to Brianna McClarty who wrote this video. You can find her social links below and we want to know what you guys think about the ending. Do you like the change? Do you think they should have kept it the same as the book? Let us know down in the comments or on Twitter, Blue Sky Threads, or are free to join Discord server. And if it's your first time here, My gosh, guys, please subscribe and ring that bell for alerts.

For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.