Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein and Wolves
Over the holidays, I finally saw the recent Frankenstein film. While I was less enthusiastic about the storyline and character changes, the costumes, practical effects, cinematography and overall visuals were quite impressive. Some of the physical models (like the water tower) reminded me of the quality of special effects that went into the Lord of the Rings films. Likewise, it had one of the more sympathetic portrayals of The Creature of the various and sundry adaptations I've seen. This is not surprising, given del Toro's history of being highly sympathetic to 'monster' characters in general. A feature of his works that I usually greatly appreciate. I did wish that The Creature and Elizabeth's interactions had been more extensive. Perhaps all the spoilers I'd unfortunately encountered before actually watching it had given me an erroneous expectations, but I'd assumed they had a little bit more screentime together than what actually panned out. That said, their brief moments were nonetheless hauntingly beautiful and memorable. I always appreciate 'monster love' themes in my fictional media.
While there were a number of elements of the adaptation that I wasn't overly keen on in comparison to the book, that isn't really the point of this post. I was already aware of the altered aspects prior to viewing, so these weren't something I went into the film with the intention of nitpicking. There was, however, something that stood out to me in a negative sense and which unfortunately detracted from my personal enjoyment of the film.
This was the depiction of the wolves in 'The Creature's Tale' section of the story. While I understand that del Toro was merely incorporating long-established fairytale and horror film tropes into his movie, this outright villainous portrayal of the pack of wolves was rather surprising given the immense sympathy the film demonstrated towards the main 'monster' figure. While there was a narration from the Creature saying that the hunters didn't hate the wolves and the wolves didn't hate the sheep, and it was 'just the way of the world', this wasn't how the actual scene panned out. It had the wolves being vicious in their attack of the family, and acting in unnatural manner compared to how actual wolves behave. So it failed as a metaphor for 'nature's ways' simply being 'that of violence' when it didn't show a natural wolf behaviour.
On top of my disappointment regarding the way the wolves were portrayed behaviourally, I was also frustrated by their visual design. The rest of the film (with the exception of the cgi deer in another scene) were very heavy on practical effects, but the wolves were very glaringly cgi and very unrealistic looking. And not only that, but they were the entirely wrong type of wolves for the supposed 'region' in which the story was meant to be taking place. While the Creature's tale was rather ambiguous about exact location, it was heavily implied to be somewhere in Central Europe, which means the wolves in question would have been European (Eurasian) wolves. These have an appearance that is very distinctive (see images below) and they do NOT look the same as the large Alaskan wolves that were (re)introduced to Yellowstone and which are now the stereotypical Hollywood concept of 'wolves'. Examples of European wolves from Germany, Poland, and Slovakia:
While most people probably don't care about a detail like this, as someone who absolutely loves Eurasian wolves and has lived closely with three Czechoslovakian wolfdogs (a dog breed with Carpathian wolf heritage), it is so glaring that it absolutely destroyed my sense of immersion during those scenes. Perhaps it was just poor timing for me, as only just a few days prior I had posted a video clip from a Czech film featuring Czechoslovakian wolfdogs acting in place of European wolves in a scene that portrayed said wolves as acting *unnaturally* during an apocalyptic situation in which their attack on a village was meant to symbolise nature turning against humans, rather than, say, something that was typically part of the natural order. (Having only recently watched that scene, I couldn't help but think that, however cheesy it was, I'd still rather watch animal actors than the ugly cgi wolves.)
Now, once again, I know del Toro is hardly solely to blame for perpetuating this 'killer wolves' trope....it's simply a staple of fairytales, folklore, and horror cinema. But it was still deeply frustrating that THEE most well-known monster sympathiser out there could not find some sympathy for the wolves. The script might have paid lip service to a more neutral perspective on the wolves' existence, but the wolves were clearly at ODDS with the Creature... to the point of killing the man who was like a surrogate father to him, and also leaving him to take the blame of their violent attack. Instead of showing that wolves in reality are heavily persecuted by humans (who absolutely DO hate wolves), and drawing some kind of parallel between them and the Creature's plight, they were instead depicted anatagonistically in relation to the Creature.
For many people, this wouldn't be an issue, but unfortunately it's something I haven't been able to stop thinking about since watching the film. I could overlook the changes and alterations from the book, but this aspect was just something that stuck with me, and not in a good way. Don't get me wrong, there were many things to enjoy about the film, but it definitely took me out of the moment and decreased my overall enthusiasm for this movie.
I looked online to see if I was the only overly-sensitive person who had been put off by the wolves in Frankenstein (2025) and was gratified to find at least a few articles that discussed it. One article that talked about Hollywood's depiction of 'killer wolves' being detrimental to rewilding efforts in Europe, and a blog post that goes into detail about the blogger's reaction to the wolf scene:
We recently watched Guillermo del Toro’s new film of Frankenstein.
