Frankenstein 2025: The Monster’s Tragedy Reborn

Introduction 

Since I was a boy, I have been in love with monsters. Not because they frightened me, but because they felt closer to me than heroes ever did. Mary Shelley gave us a monster who was not born evil but was abandoned, and in that abandonment, the seed of tragedy was sown. Frankenstein is not simply a Gothic tale — it is the very origin of science fiction, but also one of the most human stories ever told: the longing to be seen, and the devastation when that longing is denied.

Cinema has often reduced this tale to thunder, bolts, and stitches, but Shelley’s novel is much more — it is poetry wrapped in horror, philosophy dressed in myth. It is about love turned into grief, creation turned into responsibility, and ambition turned into ruin. For two hundred years, the story has spoken to our fears of science, our awe of nature, and our terror of loneliness. We felt it was time to bring that vision back to the screen in a way that was as terrifying as it was heartbreaking.

With Robert Eggers, a director of unflinching honesty and historical rigor, this film became not just another adaptation, but an act of resurrection — of Mary Shelley’s original voice. We invite you into the storm, into the candlelight, into the silence of snow and ice, to meet the creature once more — not as a caricature, but as a mirror for our humanity.

(Note: This is an imaginary conversation, a creative exploration of an idea, and not a real speech or event.)

ACT I — The Birth of Ambition

FADE IN:

EXT. THE ARCTIC — DUSK — 16:9

A horizon of white and iron. Wind howls like a living thing. A BLACK SPECK staggers across the ice.

A CREAKING MAST rises into view: ROBERT WALTON’s ice-locked ship.

INT. WALTON’S SHIP — MAIN DECK — CONTINUOUS

SAILORS strain against ropes. FROST forms on beards. The lookout’s bell CLANGS.

LOOKOUT
(man overboard cry)
Ho! Stranger on the floe!

Grapnels fly. Hands pull up a FROZEN MAN — VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN, 25, fevered eyes, lips blue.

INT. WALTON’S CABIN — NIGHT

A small oil lamp. Victor lies beneath rough blankets, trembling. ROBERT WALTON, 30s, stoic, watchful, sits beside him.

WALTON
You are among friends. I’m Robert Walton, Captain. Where are your people?

Victor’s gaze is hollow.

VICTOR
Gone. Or never mine. Keep your ship from the east wind, captain. It breeds pursuit.

WALTON
Pursuit?

Victor stares past him, toward the creaking dark.

VICTOR
I have seen the face of my ambition. It hunts. It learns. It does not tire.

Walton leans closer, compelled.

WALTON
What hunts you?

Victor draws breath like he’s swallowing glass.

VICTOR
My work.

A long beat.

WALTON
Tell me.

Victor’s jaw works. A decision. He nods, barely.

VICTOR (V.O.)
If you would seek glory, learn first what it costs.

MATCH CUT TO:

EXT. GENEVA — DAY — FLASHBACK

Lake like a mirror. Church bells. Children run. The world is softer here.

CAROLINE FRANKENSTEIN, dignified, and ALPHONSE FRANKENSTEIN, kind but stern, walk with YOUNG VICTOR (12) and ELIZABETH LAVENZA (10), ethereal, precise.

CAROLINE
Victor, mind your sister.

ELIZABETH
(smiling)
I am no porcelain, aunt.

ALPHONSE
Books do not teach you to look where you step.

Victor’s eyes are already elsewhere — on the shimmer of lightning beyond the mountains.

INT. FRANKENSTEIN HOUSE — LIBRARY — TWILIGHT

Candles sputter. Victor pores over Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus, woodcuts of homunculi, the margins stained with oils.

HENRY CLERVAL (12), bright and impulsive, barges in.

CLERVAL
Your mother says supper grows cold.

VICTOR
(rapt)
Listen to this— “He who would command nature must first submit to her most hidden laws.”

CLERVAL
“Submit” by sneaking to the vault and stealing candles again?

Victor smirks, guilty.

ELIZABETH (O.S.)
Victor?

She appears in the doorway with a shawl.

ELIZABETH (CONT’D)
If the storm worsens, the trees will fall. Your father will want the sheep brought in.

VICTOR
Let it fall. Let everything fall.

She studies him. Concern mingled with fondness.

EXT. GENEVA — NIGHT — STORM

Lightning. A tree SPLITS. Victor stands in the rain, exultant and terrified by the raw current.

VICTOR (V.O.)
I thought electricity the blood of God.

MONTAGE — YEARS PASSING

— A birthday cake blown out; a book gifted: “Principles of Chemistry.”
— Elizabeth stitching a linen shirt; Victor’s hands stained with inks and metals.
— Clerval reciting lines of romances as Victor, distracted, sketches anatomy plates.

EXT. COACH ROAD — DAY

A rattling coach. Victor (now 18) departs for INGOLSTADT. Elizabeth presses a small gold LOCKET into his hand.

ELIZABETH
Write to me. Often. I will know if you don’t — in my bones.

VICTOR
I will be back before the mountains even notice I am gone.

CLERVAL
Bring back a German ghost story.

They laugh. Victor boards.

VICTOR (V.O.)
I mistook promise for permission.

EXT. UNIVERSITY OF INGOLSTADT — COURTYARD — DAY

Cold stone. Students in cloaks. Anatomists carry baskets beneath cloths.

INT. LECTURE HALL — DAY

A PROFESSOR thunders at a chalkboard of chemical formulae.

PROFESSOR
The dead do not return. The living mechanize their errors, call it “progress,” and then die also.

Students titter. Victor’s hand shoots up.

VICTOR
What is life?

The hall stills.

PROFESSOR
A process. A flame.

VICTOR
Then might there be a spark that—
(choosing his word)
— encourages flame?

The professor’s eyes narrow.

PROFESSOR
Your appetite will ruin you, Mr…?

VICTOR
Frankenstein.

INT. UNIVERSITY — DISSECTION ROOM — NIGHT

Lanterns hung low. The butcher’s stink of tannins and metal. Victor stands over a cadaver, instructor’s voice droning.

INSTRUCTOR (O.S.)
Observe the sutures of the skull.

Victor’s gaze falls on the hands. Tendons like harp strings. He imagines them plucked by lightning.

VICTOR (V.O.)
I believed I could compose a symphony from sinew and salt.

INT. ATTIC ROOM — NIGHT

A narrow cell of books, vials, copper coils. Victor writes frantic calculations, pacing. A moth flutters at the lamp.

VICTOR (V.O.)
If God breathed into clay, why should I not learn the cadence of that breath?

He stops at a crude sketch: a figure, proportions overlaid by notes: “Height: greater than human // Nerves — augmented.”

MONTAGE — THE OBSESSION BUILDS

— Victor bribing grave-watchers for “medical waste.”
— The sluice of a rain barrel washing blood into the gutter.
— Copper wire tightened, gears tested, glass jars flickering with galvanic charge.
— He eats standing; he sleeps, if at all, in clothes.
— A letter from Elizabeth lies unopened on a shelf.

ELIZABETH (V.O., LETTER)
You do not answer. When I dream now, it is of your absence. Please, Victor—

He slides the letter away, hands shaking, eyes alight.

EXT. ABATTOIR YARD — DAWN

Victor trades coins for a shrouded bundle. The BUTCHER eyes him.

BUTCHER
For pigs, you said.

Victor holds the cloth tighter.

VICTOR
For study.

INT. SECRET LABORATORY — NIGHT

A high window. Rain snakes down the glass. On the table: a BODY assembled with an anatomist’s precision. Stitches neat as calligraphy. The head is veiled.

Victor lights the final candle. He stands over the figure— awe, terror, zeal.

VICTOR
(soft, reverent)
I have come too far to be small now.

He cranks a flywheel. Copper cages HUM. Bottles glow. A catenary of sparks crawls the wire. He fixes two metal NODES at the figure’s neck.

VICTOR (CONT’D)
(whispering)
If I am blasphemer, let the heavens answer me now.

He throws a knife-switch. Lightning answers — a violent white pulse through the rig.

The body JOLTS. The hand twitches, then curls— a newborn’s grasp.

Victor gasps, tears in his eyes.

VICTOR (CONT’D)
Live.

A second pulse — a CHOKING INTAKE OF AIR from the thing on the table.

VICTOR (CONT’D)
(weeping, manic)
LIVE!

The eyes open. Not empty: SEARCHING.

A noise— a small, animal sob— escapes the creature.

Then Victor sees it fully. The seams. The paleness. The sheer wrongness of how near to human it comes.

His face collapses — from triumph to revulsion so quickly it looks like a wound opening.

He staggers back, knocks over a beaker — glass SHATTERS.

The creature struggles to rise — weak, blind with the first light of the world.

CREATURE
(a wet rasp)
—ah—

Victor FLINGS the veil over its face and RUNS.

EXT. COURTYARD — NIGHT

Rain needles down. Victor reels into the alley, retching. He presses his forehead to the stone.

VICTOR (V.O.)
I fled like a coward before the first breath of my own soul.

INT. BOARDING HOUSE — STAIRWELL — NIGHT

Victor collapses on the steps. Footsteps approach: CLERVAL, hat dripping, a smile dying when he sees Victor’s state.

CLERVAL
Good God, what have you done to yourself?

Victor can’t speak. Clerval hauls him up.

INT. CLERVAL’S ROOM — LATER

Victor shakes, feverish. Clerval wrings a cloth over a basin.

CLERVAL
You’ve not eaten. Nor slept. Your letters read like arithmetic. I don’t speak numbers, Victor.

Victor stares at the wall.

CLERVAL (CONT’D)
Are you in danger?

Victor flinches at the word.

VICTOR
Yes. But I am the danger.

Clerval studies him, gentles his voice.

CLERVAL
Rest. If the devil himself knocks, I’ll tell him to come after breakfast.

A faint laugh catches in Victor’s throat, becomes a sob.

INT. SECRET LABORATORY — SAME NIGHT

The door CREAKS open into darkness. Rain’s lullaby. The table is empty.

A trail of damp footprints leads to the corner window, open.

EXT. ALLEY BEYOND THE LAB — NIGHT

The creature huddles in the rain, naked, shivering. Lightning reveals the stitched topography of his body. He presses his hand to the slick stone. Breath fogs. Eyes wide, bewildered.

A CAT hisses. The creature flinches, then imitates: a small, sad hiss back.

INT. CLERVAL’S ROOM — MORNING

Gray light. Victor stares at the locket Elizabeth gave him. Clerval snores in a chair, a book fallen.

VICTOR (V.O.)
I had loosed a child into the world. And fled him as if he were plague.

EXT. FIELD OUTSIDE THE CITY — DAY

The creature stumbles through winter-dead reeds toward a small farm. A WOMAN hangs laundry. A LITTLE BOY watches, sees the creature— frozen with a child’s unfiltered terror.

LITTLE BOY
Mama—

The woman turns, drops the sheet. The creature lifts his hand— open, benign, pleading.

WOMAN
Get back!

She snatches a FIRE BRAND from the stove’s ash box and brandishes it. The creature recoils, then backs away, arms raised in surrender. He flees, the brand’s embers raining after him.

EXT. WOOD — LATE AFTERNOON

Snow begins. The creature finds a hollow beneath a fallen tree, curls into it, clutching himself. He watches steam curl from his own breath, fascinated, frightened.

CREATURE (V.O.)
(halting, learning to think)
Cold.
Hurt.
Alone.

INT. BOARDING HOUSE — NIGHT

Victor sits on the floor, knees drawn up. Clerval beside him, two bowls of lentils cooling.

CLERVAL
You must tell me what work you’ve done. If the law needs to be— managed, we will manage it. If not, we will— burn it. Whatever it is.

Victor’s jaw clenches. He shakes his head.

VICTOR
There is no language for it.

CLERVAL
Then make one. You always do.

Victor looks at him — love and horror both.

EXT. OUTSKIRTS COTTAGE — NIGHT

A humble cottage with a yellow square of light. Inside, shadows of a FAMILY moving gently.

The creature creeps to the wall. Through a crack, he sees: DE LACEY, a BLIND OLD MAN, FELIX, and AGATHA, tending the hearth, passing bread, speaking softly.

The creature’s breath slows to match theirs. He presses his ear to the wood.

AGATHA (M.U.)
The snow will keep the wolves away. Even they know when a door is shut.

DE LACEY (M.U.)
A door is shut against wolves. It must never be shut against men.

The creature closes his eyes, as if the words are warmth.

INT. WALTON’S CABIN — NIGHT (BACK IN FRAME STORY)

Victor stares into the lamp. Walton sits, rapt.

WALTON
You built a man.

Victor’s silence is answer enough.

WALTON (CONT’D)
You abandoned him.

Victor swallows. A yes he cannot say.

VICTOR
I thought him a devil. He was an infant.

WALTON
And now?

VICTOR
Now he is something else.

WALTON
Where is he?

Victor’s eyes lift — to the ship’s ceiling. The wind moans.

VICTOR
He learns.

EXT. THE COTTAGE — DAWN

The creature watches the family wake. He mimics their motions: rubbing hands, stretching, turning toward the light.

He tries a whisper, shaping his mouth.

CREATURE
(whisper)
Fa…
…ther.

He smiles, fragile, surprised at the sound.

INT. UNIVERSITY — LECTURE HALL — DAY

Victor sits, hollow-eyed, as a demonstration of galvanism animates a FROG’S LEG. Students murmur.

PROFESSOR
The muscle stirs, yes, but it does not live. Beware metaphors.

Victor stares at the twitching meat. He hears, faintly, that first newborn sob again. He stands abruptly, chair scraping, and leaves.

EXT. RIVERBANK — DUSK

Victor washes his hands in freezing water until they redden. He scrubs at his skin as if truth is dirt that will come off if he bleeds enough.

VICTOR (V.O.)
I wanted to make a hymn. I made a mouth for grief.

INT. BOARDING HOUSE — NIGHT

Clerval sets a letter on the table. Elizabeth’s fine hand.

CLERVAL
She writes again.

Victor stares at it a long time. Opens it.

ELIZABETH (V.O., LETTER)
Do not forget the small things: the sound of the bell at Saint Pierre, the taste of pears after first frost, your father’s cough when he laughs. Come home when you can. If you cannot, let me know the reason I must wait.

Victor folds the letter carefully. He tucks the locket into his shirt.

VICTOR
I will do one kindness, then another.

Clerval searches his face.

CLERVAL
Begin with sleep.

They blow out the lamp.

EXT. WOOD — NIGHT

Moonlight. The creature gathers fallen twigs, arranges them as he’s seen Felix do. He strikes flint (stolen), fails, tries again. A spark. A small flame. He laughs — a ragged, astonished sound — and nearly smothers it with his hands, then learns to cup it.

Firelight climbs his stitched cheeks. He holds his palms over it, reverent.

CREATURE (V.O.)
Light.
Warm.
Friend.

From the cottage, a violin begins — Felix’s hesitant bow. The creature looks toward the sound, eyes wet.

He shades the fire with his body, careful, so its smoke will not betray him. He listens, utterly still.

INT. WALTON’S CABIN — NIGHT

The ship GROANS. Walton pours hot liquor into a tin. Offers it. Victor shakes his head.

WALTON
If he learns, as you say — what would he learn first?

Victor answers without hesitation, voice cracked with certainty.

VICTOR
That the world is cold. That a door is a miracle.

Walton nods, somewhere between pity and awe.

WALTON
And you— what did you learn?

Victor stares into the lamplight until his eyes shine.

VICTOR
That a creator’s first duty is to stay.

A silent beat hangs.

Distantly, on the ice, something SCRAPES against the hull. Both men freeze.

WALTON
Did you hear—

Victor’s hand grips the blanket.

VICTOR
He is patient.

The scrape fades. Only wind.

EXT. COTTAGE — PRE-DAWN

The creature, exhausted but warm from the dying fire, curls beneath his tree. He watches the cottage door. When AGATHA steps out to fetch water, he shrinks back, invisible.

She hums. A simple, human thing. He smiles, mouthing the sound like a word.

CREATURE
Hu—
…man.

Snow begins again. He lifts his palm to catch it, mesmerized by the flakes dissolving on his skin.

CREATURE (V.O.)
The world touches me, and does not run.

He closes his eyes, as if in prayer.

CUT TO BLACK.

END OF ACT I

ACT II — The Monster Speaks

EXT. WOODS NEAR THE DE LACEY COTTAGE — DAWN

Frost on branches. Smoke curls from a cottage chimney.
The CREATURE crouches in his hollow, watching the family through cracks in the wall.

Inside: DE LACEY (blind patriarch), FELIX, and AGATHA.
They eat bread, speak softly, tend to chores.

The creature imitates their motions in silence — chewing air, folding hands.

CREATURE (V.O., halting)
Bread. Fire. Father.

EXT. WOODS — VARIOUS DAYS (MONTAGE)

— The creature gathers berries, brings them secretly to the cottage doorstep.
— He listens to Agatha read aloud. He mouths words silently.
— Snow falls; he builds a small fire, shielding it proudly.
— Felix plays violin; the creature trembles, overwhelmed, whispering “Mu… sic.”

INT. COTTAGE — NIGHT

The family sits in lamplight. De Lacey strokes the violin.

DE LACEY
Music is proof that sorrow is not the end.

The creature listens, tears streaking his stitched face.

EXT. COTTAGE — DAY

Spring. The creature sees his reflection in a frozen pond thawing.
For the first time, he sees himself fully — monstrous.
He recoils, smashes the ice, but his reflection reforms in the shards.

CREATURE (V.O.)
I was not as they. I was… other.

EXT. COTTAGE — AFTERNOON

The creature waits until Felix and Agatha leave. He gathers courage, approaches the blind De Lacey at the door.

DE LACEY
Who’s there?

CREATURE (gentle)
A traveler. Alone. In need of kindness.

DE LACEY
Then you are welcome. Sit.

Inside, they talk — halting but real.

CREATURE
If I were… wretched in form… would you still speak with me?

DE LACEY
The eye lies often. The voice rarely. You are no wretch to me.

Tears fall from the creature’s eyes.

The door opens — Felix and Agatha return. They see the creature — screams, blows, Felix striking him with a staff.

The creature flees into the forest, sobbing.

EXT. FOREST — NIGHT

The creature lights a torch, looks back at the cottage. He whispers:

CREATURE
Father…

He sets the cottage ablaze. The flames consume it. He vanishes into the dark.

EXT. ALPINE VALLEY — DAY

Victor treks alone in the mountains, letters from Elizabeth unread in his coat.
He rests on a cliff. A SHADOW looms behind him — the creature.

CREATURE
Do you shrink from me, creator?

Victor whirls, pale with terror.

CREATURE (CONT’D)
You gave me life… then left me to death. Hear me now.

EXT. GLACIER — CONTINUOUS

The two walk together across a desolate glacier, tension electric.

CREATURE
I learned men’s speech. I learned their hearts. They shut their doors, their eyes, their arms. Not once did they call me brother.

Victor’s lips tremble.

VICTOR
You killed—

CREATURE (cutting in)
I killed because you abandoned me! I was born with love… and the world gave me only fire.

The creature kneels before him, shocking Victor.

CREATURE (pleading)
Give me a mate. One who will not turn away. Then I swear — we will vanish, to the wastes, never to harm man again.

Victor falters.

VICTOR
A mate… Another horror unleashed—

CREATURE
No. Another soul. Do not deny me this.

A long silence. Victor finally nods.

VICTOR
I will try.

INT. BOARDING HOUSE — NIGHT

Clerval laughs over his travel notes. Victor listens hollowly, thinking of the promise.

CLERVAL
You must see England with me, Victor. Castles, towers, not just graveyards.

Victor forces a smile.

VICTOR (V.O.)
I carried two chains: guilt, and the vow to break it.

EXT. ORKNEY ISLANDS — DAY

Bleak coast. Victor has rented a hut. Inside, crude tools, dissected remains.
He works on a second creature — a female, half-complete.

Elizabeth’s letters lie unopened nearby.

INT. HUT — NIGHT

Victor looks at the female body. He imagines her alive — and the two creatures multiplying. A world overrun. His hand shakes.

He takes a scalpel — and TEARS HIS WORK APART.

Lightning flashes.

At the window — the creature watches, face distorted with anguish and rage.

CREATURE
NO!

He SMASHES his fist against the glass.

CREATURE (CONT’D)
I will be with you on your wedding night!

Victor stumbles back, horrified.

EXT. SHORE — DAY

Victor casts the remains into the sea. The tide swallows them.

VICTOR (V.O.)
I had killed her before she lived. And so I gave birth again — to vengeance.

EXT. WOODS — NIGHT

The creature drags a limp body — CLERVAL, strangled. He lays him on a riverbank.

Victor arrives too late. He collapses, wailing, clutching Clerval’s corpse.

VICTOR (V.O.)
He took my dearest friend, as I had taken his only hope.

INT. PRISON CELL — NIGHT

Victor sits in chains, accused of murder. A gaoler brings stale bread. Victor stares at his bloodied hands.
He is later acquitted, but leaves broken, hollow.

EXT. GENEVA — DAY

Victor returns home. Elizabeth greets him with open arms.

ELIZABETH
We shall marry soon. You need peace, Victor. You need love.

Victor embraces her, but his eyes are haunted.

VICTOR (V.O.)
Peace was a ghost. And love — already marked for death.

END OF ACT II

ACT III — Love and Death

EXT. GENEVA — MORNING

Church bells. Market chatter. A thin winter sun.
Victor and Elizabeth walk the lakeside. He scans every shadow.

ELIZABETH
If your sorrow has a name, tell me and we’ll carry it together.

VICTOR
There are names that break whoever speaks them.

She takes his hand anyway.

INT. FRANKENSTEIN HOUSE — PARLOR — DAY

Wedding preparations: lace, flowers, candles. Alphonse watches his son with worried pride.

ALPHONSE
A man builds himself twice: once by work, once by love. Do not fail the second.

Victor nods, unable to answer.

INT. CHAPEL — DUSK

A small ceremony. Candlelight. Elizabeth’s smile is steady, brave.
Victor’s vows catch in his throat, but he says them.
Applause, a soft hymn. For a moment, peace.

EXT. LAKESIDE INN — NIGHT

Their wedding night. Snow dusts the eaves. The lake is black glass.

VICTOR (to himself)
Come, then.

He checks doors, shutters, pistol. He forces a smile for Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH
Will you walk a while? Calm your mind?

VICTOR
I will search the grounds. Bolt the door after me.

She studies him, reading the fear he won’t name, then nods.

INT. INN — BRIDAL ROOM — CONTINUOUS

Elizabeth alone in the quiet. Wind rattles the window.
She lifts her veil, breathes. A floorboard creaks in the adjoining room.

ELIZABETH
Victor?

Silence. She moves to the door— pauses— chooses courage.

EXT. INN — YARD / LAKESIDE — SAME

Victor stalks the shadows, pistol drawn.
A shape moves— he turns— only a swaying branch.
From the house: a distant, strangled CRY.

VICTOR
Elizabeth!

He sprints.

INT. INN — BRIDAL ROOM — MOMENTS LATER

The window is shattered. Curtains whip in the wind.
Elizabeth lies on the floor, throat marked, veil stained red.

Victor drops to his knees, gathers her, keening soundless.

VICTOR (V.O.)
I had married death.

Snow eddies through the broken window.

INT. FRANKENSTEIN HOUSE — DAY (AFTER)

Alphonse, collapsed in a chair, weeping.
Victor stands like a ruin, empty hands opening and closing.

ALPHONSE
I am too old to learn how to bury a child.

His chest tightens; he slumps, breath failing. Servants rush.
Victor lunges— helpless— as his father dies.

Silence.

EXT. CEMETERY — DUSK

Two fresh graves: ELIZABETH and ALPHONSE.
Victor alone between them, snow on his shoulders.

VICTOR
I will hunt you to the end of the world.

He turns from the graves and does not look back.

EXT. EUROPEAN WASTELANDS — VARIOUS — MONTAGE

— Victor sells heirlooms for gear.
— Asks at waystations; hears of a “giant” crossing passes at night.
— Fires dwindle smaller; his face grows thinner.
— On a cliff, he spies a distant figure loping over ice.

VICTOR (V.O.)
He led; I followed. He fed; I starved. He slept; I counted the seconds until dawn.

EXT. NORTHERN COAST — NIGHT

A shore of broken ice. The creature stands across a chasm of black water, watching.

CREATURE
You made me for loneliness. Now be companion to it.

He hurls a bundle onto the ice near Victor: food, furs, a flask.

CREATURE (CONT’D)
You will need strength to hate me longer.

The creature turns and vanishes into the white.

Victor, shaking, tears open the bundle. He eats with numb hands, eyes blazing.

EXT. PACK ICE / ARCTIC — DAYS LATER

A skeletal sled creaks over the floe. Victor’s breath feathers the air.
In the distance, masts: a ship locked in ice.

INT. WALTON’S SHIP — CABIN — NIGHT (FRAME STORY RETURNS)

Victor finishes his tale. Walton leans forward, shaken.

WALTON
Turn back with us. Live. There is still life left to be made good.

VICTOR
I am already a ghost that eats.

The hull GROANS; wind moans in the seams.

WALTON
If the thing you made comes here—

VICTOR
He will. He is most faithful in the dark.

Victor’s body trembles; the fever has him. Walton pours hot liquor.

WALTON
What should I do if I see him?

VICTOR
Listen. Then choose whether you will be a man, or a maker.

Walton doesn’t understand— but nods.

INT. WALTON’S SHIP — SICK BERTH — LATER

Victor’s breath rattles. Walton sits vigil, journal open.

VICTOR
Tell Elizabeth—
(he stops; a flinch of pain)
Tell no one. Burn what must be burned.

WALTON
Rest.

Victor’s eyes fix on something far away.

VICTOR
I thought to steal fire. I stole winter.

His chest stills. A long, thin silence.

Walton reaches and closes Victor’s eyes.

INT. WALTON’S CABIN — HOURS LATER

A single lamp. Victor’s body lies covered. The journal and locket beside him.

A SHADOW rises at the foot of the bed.

The CREATURE stands in the doorway, rimmed with frost, larger than the room, yet small with grief.

He approaches, stops short of touching Victor.

CREATURE (whispers)
I asked you to see me. You taught me to be seen only by the dead.

He kneels. At last, he lays his hand— enormous, careful— on Victor’s covered chest.

CREATURE (CONT’D)
I was born with love. You made me a mirror for your fear.

He looks up at Walton— who has not screamed, has not called the crew.

CREATURE (to Walton)
Will you curse me? Shoot? Or hear?

Walton swallows.

WALTON
I will hear.

A beat. The creature’s shoulders lower, just a fraction— a man unburdening a stone.

CREATURE
I burned the only door that opened to me. I killed the only mouths that said my name. I thought revenge would turn my blood warm. It turned the world to ash.

He studies Victor’s face, gentle, almost fatherly.

CREATURE (CONT’D)
He was my maker. I am his ruin.

WALTON
What will you do now?

CREATURE
What he would not. I will end what should not have begun.

He takes the locket, opens it, stares at Elizabeth’s tiny portrait— then places it back beside Victor with reverence.

CREATURE (CONT’D)
Grief is a fire that does not warm.

He rises.

WALTON
Wait— there may be another way—

CREATURE
There is one mercy left to me. Do not make me smaller by forbidding it.

Their eyes meet— two men who are not quite men to each other.

Walton steps aside. Permission, or surrender.

EXT. PACK ICE — PRE-DAWN

Pale green aurora stains the sky. The creature drags a small sled to a jagged pressure ridge, a black mouth in the ice that exhales fog.

He arranges driftwood and tar, sets it alight. Flames stutter in the wind.

CREATURE (V.O.)
The world touched me and did not run. Once.

He looks back— a solitary figure against an endless plain.

He steps onto the sled, pushes off toward the open lead where fire licks and the sea breathes.

WALTON (O.S., V.O.)
I called out. He did not turn.

The creature disappears into mist and flame; the light swallows his silhouette.

INT. WALTON’S SHIP — DAWN

Walton closes his journal. The crew waits for orders.

FIRST MATE
Captain?

Walton looks to the horizon— a line between white and white.

WALTON
We turn for home.

Relief exhales through the ship.

WALTON (V.O., reading from his journal)
“I met a man who made a man, and lost himself. I met that second man, who was taught only to be a monster, and learned instead to mourn. If ever I burn for glory again, I will remember the cold.”

He tucks the locket and the journal into a chest.

EXT. ARCTIC SEA — DAY

The ship groans free, sails cracking into the wind.
Behind them, the ice closes. Ahead, a thin road of water opens like an unpromised mercy.

Snow falls. It erases footprints, then thought, then sound.

FADE OUT.

Final Thoughts 

When I make a film, I want the audience to feel the world as if they lived in it. To smell the wax dripping from a candle, to hear the scrape of wood on stone, to shiver in the Arctic wind. With Frankenstein, that immersion was crucial — because this is not a story of spectacle, but of intimacy and terror. The terror of ambition without responsibility. The terror of being born into a world with no hand to hold.

What Shelley wrote was radical for its time: a tale where science trespasses into creation, but the true horror is not the act of creation itself — it is the abandonment that follows. The creature begins as a child, longing for kindness, and what he receives instead is rejection, cruelty, and hatred. In the space between that longing and that denial lies the heart of this tragedy. To me, the film had to honor that — not just through Gothic grandeur, but through silence, breath, and grief.

If you leave this story unsettled, that is good. If you leave it mourning, that is better. Because Frankenstein is not about lightning and stitches — it is about the cost of being unseen. And when you walk away, I hope you remember this: we are all someone’s creator, and we are all someone’s creature.

Short Bios:

Mary Shelley (1797–1851) – English novelist and intellectual, best known for writing Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) at just 18 years old. Her work is considered the first true science fiction novel, blending Gothic horror with deep philosophical questions about creation, responsibility, and the human condition.

Victor Frankenstein – A brilliant but obsessive scientist who defies nature by creating life. His refusal to take responsibility for his creation leads to ruin.

The Creature – Intelligent and sensitive, yet grotesque in form. Begins with innocence and a longing for companionship but becomes vengeful after repeated rejection.

Elizabeth Lavenza – Victor’s beloved and eventual bride. Represents loyalty and love, but falls victim to the creature’s vengeance.

Henry Clerval – Victor’s closest friend, full of warmth and imagination. His death underscores the cost of Victor’s ambition.

Robert Walton – An Arctic explorer seeking glory. His encounter with Victor and the creature frames the story and mirrors Victor’s reckless ambition.