Director Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is finally streaming on Netflix, and at the center of all of the initial praise for the film is Jacob Elordi. The “Euphoria” and “Saltburn” breakout star has received widespread acclaim for his performance in the film as the Creature, the being of cobbled-and-stitched-together body parts stolen from other, dead corpses who is brought to life in an act of unholy creation by the arrogant scientist, Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac).
Elordi is utterly unrecognizable in the role, and yet he gives the film enough humanity to make its second half sing. In the wider history of “Frankenstein” adaptations, he is not the first performer to do so. On the contrary, Elordi is the latest in a long line of actors who have played Frankenstein’s monster onscreen.
In honor of his star-making turn in “Frankenstein,” though, here is a look back at some of the other iconic performers who have filled the character’s undead shoes over the years.
Boris Karloff
Nearly 100 years later, actor Boris Karloff’s portrayal of the Creature in director James Whale’s 1931 adaptation of “Frankenstein” remains the most iconic and well-known take on the character to date. Karloff went on to reprise the role a few times throughout his career, most notably in 1935’s “The Bride of Frankenstein,” as well as in 1939’s “Son of Frankenstein.”
Lon Chaney, Jr.
While Karloff’s performance as Frankenstein’s monster remains the most iconic, he was far from the only noteworthy actor to take on the role during Hollywood’s Golden Age era. Lon Chaney, Jr. famously played the character in 1942’s “The Ghost of Frankenstein” and would eventually become the only actor in Hollywood history to portray all of Universal’s major movie monsters (the Wolf Man, Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy and Dracula).
In addition to Chaney, Bela Lugosi played Frankenstein’s monster in “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man,” while Glenn Strange stepped into the role in “House of Frankenstein,” “House of Dracula” and — perhaps most famously of all — “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.”
Fred Gwynne
From 1964 through 1966, Fred Gwynne portrayed Herman Munster, the patriarch of a family of monsters, in the short-lived but beloved CBS sitcom “The Munsters.” While Herman Munster is never directly called Frankenstein’s monster in the series, the character is clearly modeled after the latter, with Gwynne wearing makeup and prosthetics that are meant to intentionally echo those worn by Karloff in 1931’s “Frankenstein.”
Despite the character’s different name, Gwynne’s Herman Munster remains one of the most well-known takes on Frankenstein’s monster. He certainly, at least, holds more of a place in American pop culture history than many of the direct takes on Frankenstein’s monster featured in some of the Hammer and B-movies produced throughout the 1950s and ’60s. (See: Christopher Lee’s turn as the character in 1957’s “The Curse of Frankenstein” and Kiwi Kingston’s version of the Creature in 1964’s “The Evil of Frankenstein.”)
Peter Boyle
Peter Boyle gave a performance for the ages when he turned in a comedic version of Frankenstein’s monster in writer-director Mel Brooks’ 1974 classic comedy, “Young Frankenstein.” Pulling visual inspiration from Karloff’s take on the character, Boyle’s Monster is a gentle giant with greater urges to entertain and, um, engage with the humans he’s surrounded by.
Tom Noonan
Speaking of more lighthearted spins on the character, actor Tom Noonan famously portrayed Frankenstein’s monster in director Fred Dekker’s 1987 horror comedy “The Monster Squad,” which follows a group of children who find themselves in a fight to prevent some of cinema’s most iconic monsters from taking over and controlling the human world.
Robert De Niro
The most-often-forgotten adaptation of Mary Shelley’s original 1818 “Frankenstein” novel happens to be widely regarded as the most faithful. It also stars none other than Robert De Niro as the Creature, and his take on the iconic character in this Kenneth Branagh-directed film is more physically horrifying and sadistic than most mainstream Hollywood iterations of the figure have dared to be. Despite that, it is rightly not regarded as one of De Niro’s more memorable performances.
Aaron Eckhart
De Niro is not the only noteworthy performer who has delivered an ultimately forgettable performance as Frankenstein’s monster onscreen. “The Dark Knight” star Aaron Eckhart famously played an action-hero version of the character, who calls himself Adam Frankenstein, in the extremely mediocre 2013 film “I, Frankenstein.”
The box office flop follows Eckhart’s Adam as he battles evil demons and their leader in order to prevent them from taking over the human world. None of it’s very good, and its barely-scarred take on its eponymous character is indicative of just how badly “I, Frankenstein” misses the point.
Spencer Wilding
One of Hollywood’s last big-screen takes on “Frankenstein” before Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of it this year came in 2015 with “Victor Frankenstein.” Director Paul McGuigan’s unremarkable, Max Landis-penned riff on Shelley’s original novel stars James McAvoy as Victor Frankenstein and Daniel Radcliffe as his assistant, Igor.
While the film is mostly about the relationship between McAvoy’s Victor and Radcliffe’s Igor, Welsh actor, stunt performer and kickboxer Spencer Wilding does appear in the film as Frankenstein’s monster, who is called “Prometheus” in the movie. As was the case with “I, Frankenstein,” the less said about “Victor Frankenstein,” the better.
Christian Bale
We’ll end this list with a look not back in the past but ahead to the future, because none other than Christian Bale is set to play Frankenstein’s monster in next year’s “The Bride!”
The film comes from “The Lost Daughter” writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal, and it reimagines the story of the Bride (Jessie Buckley), an undead woman brought to life to be the paramour of Bale’s monster, as a rip-roaring “Bonnie and Clyde”-esque crime romance set in 1930s Chicago. Already, Bale’s interpretation of Frankenstein’s monster looks like it will be a memorable addition to the character’s storied cinematic history.
