Guillermo del Toro really goes to town with this umpteenth adaptation of Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece. Produced by Netflix but best suited to the big screen, it sees the director put his grisly and operatic stamp on the material, changing things up story wise and building some grand and gobsmacking sets. Oscar Isaac plays barmy boffin Victor Frankenstein. Haunted by the demise of his beloved mother (Mia Goth), Victor is eager to break the boundaries of medicine and go beyond death. With the financial assistance of Christoph Waltz’s Harlander, Victor assembles a man from battlefield body parts (Jacob Elordi’s The Creature) and electrifies him into existence. However, it’s not long before his creation begins to disappoint him, though Victor’s soon-to-be-sister-in-law Elizabeth (Goth again) sees beyond the scars and shows the monster kindness before he’s unleashed into the world.

The design of The Creature certainly makes a statement. Pale, absurdly sculpted and towering, before adopting a tousled wild man schtick, it’s hard not to think of him as Frankenstein’s Hunk, especially given the casting of hot property Elordi (of Saltburn and Priscilla fame). Despite such distractions, Del Toro works hard to extract every ounce of emotion from the tale, going heavy on the parental angle by emphasising The Creature’s newborn neediness and the way Victor apes the behaviour of his own brutish father (played by Charles Dance).

If Isaac brings his usual intensity to the part, it feels like too outlandish and unsympathetic a turn. Simpering and growling as he goes from manchild to beast, the role of The Creature is a tough ask for any actor and, although Elordi is easy to feel sorry for, it’s not an entirely successful performance. A tighter edit and a touch more subtlety would have brought this horror classic more impactfully to life, but Del Toro has delivered an audacious take on a well-worn tale with bags of visual drama.

Frankenstein is in cinemas now and on Netflix from Friday 7 November.