This fall Frankenstein’s monster rises once more, summoned this time by Mexican film director Guillermo del Toro.
But green-skinned, bolt-necked and flat-skulled he is not. In fact, the monster — who first entered the cultural conversation over 200 years ago thanks to Mary Shelley’s gothic science-fiction novel — has undergone something of a facelift. Played by Hollywood heartthrob Jacob Elordi, the creature (who in Shelley’s writing was abandoned by humanity for its immense and unbearable “physical deformity”) appears on-screen with sculpted cheekbones and pouty lips. Even with his suture-less scars, he is kind of hot.
His skin is ivory white, inspired by the alabaster statues carved by Old Masters, with joining wounds that mimic flattering contour-lines. Elordi’s big brown puppy-dog eyes are left untouched, without so much as a zombie-style darkened under-eye. There were discussions about the addition of false eyelashes, according to the film’s visual effects makeup artist and creature designer, Mike Hill, but the consensus was that Elordi’s own were long and
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