FRANKENSTEIN (2025)

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

PRELUDE
The film opens in the farthermost part of the North Pole. A Danish crew led by Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen) gets their ship stuck in the middle of the frozen ocean. Despite the freezing temperature and low morale, Anderson intends to see his voyage through to the end. The crew is then found by Baron Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), who is severely wounded. They bring Victor onboard, but they are soon found by a gigantic Creature (Jacob Elordi). The men attempt to defend themselves but are outmatched by The Creature’s brute strength, and he kills six men. He manages to board the ship, but the men throw him overboard and shoot the ice so that he may sink underwater.

Anderson brings Victor into his quarters so that he may tend to his wounds. Victor admits that The Creature is of his own making. He begins to tell Anderson what brought him to this point.

CHAPTER I: VICTOR’S TALE
As a child, Victor (Christian Convery) was closer to his mother Claire (Mia Goth) than his aristocratic father Leopold (Charles Dance), who never showed the boy much care. Victor took up studies in mathematics and science at an early age.

Claire tragically passes away giving birth to Victor’s baby brother, William. Leopold raises William with more love than he did Victor, so Victor begins an obsession with conquering death. Victor claims this is when he first saw an angel of death, reaching out to him. Leopold dies, and the brothers are split up, with William going with family in Vienna, and Victor studying in Edinburgh.

In 1855, the adult Victor is at a disciplinary tribunal with the Royal College of Medicine, as he is conducting an experiment where he reanimates a corpse. The officials at the school expel Victor for what they perceive to be a slight against science and mankind. However, Victor garners the attention of arms dealer Heinrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz). He approaches Victor since he is already acquainted with William (Felix Kammerer), who is engaged to Harlander’s niece Elizabeth (also Mia Goth).

Victor joins Harlander at his home, where he begins to propose that Victor conduct his reanimation experiments in a building that he has acquired. Victor reunites with William after a long absence, and he also quickly becomes smitten with Elizabeth, though she is aware of his feelings and rejects his advances. She also views his desire to overcome death to be silly.

In the present, The Creature rises from out of the ice. The crew spots him walking back in their direction, and they are terrified.

Victor continues his story by discussing how Harlander brought him to the tower that would become his laboratory. They gathered bodies for the experiment by making deals to take the bodies of men who were hung or victims of the war. William aids Victor and Harlander in constructing the lab. Victor believes he has made a breakthrough when he figures out how to send electrical currents through the lymphatic system to bring the heart and brain back to life.

Victor assembles his creation and gets it ready on the night of a big storm so that he can get a proper lightning strike to reanimate his being. Harlander reveals to Victor that he is dying of syphilis, and that he requests Victor put his brain inside the creation to continue living. Victor refuses, knowing that the disease has probably already done severe damage to the rest of his organs. Harlander then tries to sabotage the experiment by taking one of the parts needed for the machine. He and Victor struggle, and Harlander slips. Victor tries to rescue him, but his sleeve rips and Harlander falls to his death, smashing his skull on impact. Victor moves the body and gets his creation ready when the lightning strikes. Despite a massive strike, Victor is enraged to find that the creation did not reanimate, and he goes to bed frustrated.

When he wakes up, Victor is stunned to see that The Creature has indeed come to life. Although initially amazed at his work, Victor grows annoyed when The Creature cannot seem to learn beyond saying Victor’s name. He leaves The Creature chained in the basement of the tower to keep him hidden. Victor also sees that The Creature’s wounds appeal to heal rapidly, as shown when he slices his palm with a razor, but the wound closes quickly.

William and Elizabeth arrive at the tower, with Victor hiding what happened to Harlander. Elizabeth discovers The Creature herself and is astonished by him, while he, in turn, is taken by her kindness. Victor is then forced to show The Creature to William, who is more apprehensive about his existence. He also later privately shows William that he has kept Harlander’s corpse hidden on ice as well, but framing it as The Creature having killed him in rage. Victor declares his experiment a failure and tells William to take Elizabeth back to Vienna so that he can deal with The Creature.

Victor leaves The Creature chained up and sets the place on fire. The Creature manages to break himself free before the fire spreads. Although Victor leaves, he has a last minute change of heart and goes back, only for the tower to explode when he walks to the door. The explosion also destroys his right leg below the knee, necessitating his use of a prosthetic in the present. William and Elizabeth also return to witness the wreckage.

Victor finishes his story, just as The Creature makes it back onboard. He prepares to attack and kill Anderson until Victor stops and pleads with him not to do it, as Victor knows that he is the reason The Creature is there. The Creature then decides to tell Anderson how he got there.

CHAPTER II: THE CREATURE’S TALE
Following his escape from the explosion, The Creature took refuge in the woods and took clothing off a dead man before encountering hunters. He found shelter at the home of an old Blind Man (David Bradley) and recalls how he witnessed the love among the man’s family. The Creature would go on to become the family’s secret benefactor.

Eventually, The Creature reveals his existence to the Blind Man and starts to learn how to speak and read from him, as well as feelings of love and compassion. They form a genuine friendship that is tragically cut short when a pack of wolves attack the man. The Creature fights and brutally kills most of the wolves, but the man dies from his wounds after The Creature stays by his side. The man’s family accuses The Creature of his death, so they chase him out and shoot him, leaving him to die.

Meanwhile, Victor has been taken in by William and Elizabeth prior to their wedding. The Creature finds and confronts Victor, having survived his gunshots and realizing that he is essentially immortal. He demands that Victor create him a companion. He refuses, stating that his experiment that gave The Creature life was a great regret. The Creature attacks Victor, which Elizabeth hears. She goes to comfort him, but Victor tries to shoot The Creature and accidentally hits Elizabeth. William arrives with his men, and Victor accuses The Creature of killing Elizabeth. William and the men die trying to fight The Creature, and he takes Elizabeth to a cave to be with her in her final moments. Before dying, William tells Victor that he has always been afraid of him.

Victor pursues The Creature into the Arctic, where his attempts to shoot, stab, and blow him up with dynamite all fail and leave him with his own wounds. This would lead to him coming upon Anderson and his crew.

With their stories finished, Victor knows he is about to die. He apologizes to The Creature for his cruelty towards him, and he forgives Victor, acknowledging their relationship as father and son. Victor dies.

As the morning comes, The Creature helps push the ship out of the ice and back onto open waters. Moved by the stories he has heard, Anderson abandons his mission and promises the crew they will head home, leading them to cheer. The Creature then stands and embraces the rising sun, with a tear streaming down his cheek.

Victor Frankenstein becomes obsessed with conquering death after the death of his beloved mother. As an adult, he conducts experiments to reanimate corpses, garnering the attention of arms merchant Heinrich Harlander, who is already acquainted with Victor's younger brother William since he is engaged to Harlander's niece Elizabeth. Harlander provides Victor with a tower that becomes his laboratory to conduct his experiments.

Victor finds a way to create a machine that will send an electrical current powerful enough to reanimate the body he has assembled from multiple corpses. Harlander wants his brain to be put into the new body since his is currently rotting from syphilis, but when Victor refuses, a struggle breaks out that results in Harlander's death. The storm occurs, and Victor's experiment to create his own man works. The Creature is born, but Victor thinks he is a failure because he cannot say more than Victor's own name. Elizabeth meets The Creature and treats him with kindness and like any other person. Victor destroys the lab with The Creature inside and loses his right leg when he changes his mind and tries to go back.

The Creature escapes his fate and takes refuge in the home of a blind man that he befriends, as he teaches him to speak and read, while also showing him love and compassion. The man's family accuses The Creature of killing the man after he is mauled by wolves, and The Creature eventually realizes he is immortal after being left for dead. When he finds Victor and demands a companion, Victor refuses after thinking The Creature is an abomination. Elizabeth protects The Creature, but Victor accidentally shoots and kills her when trying to kill The Creature. William is also killed in a struggle, and Victor pursues The Creature into the Arctic after he took Elizabeth's body to a cave. Victor is gravely wounded in his pursuit.

Victor ends up on the ship of a Danish crew, where he has been telling his story to Captain Anderson as The Creature has been following him there and has already killed some of the crew. The Creature tells Anderson his own part of the story, and ultimately forgives Victor and accepts him as his father before he dies. The Creature helps push the stranded crew out of the ice and back onto the water so they can go home, and he embraces the sunrise.