Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Frankenstein is out in theaters now, a well-timed release for Halloweentober. (It’s on Netflix starting November 7, but reviews say it is visually spectacular and worth seeing on the big screen.) The classic horror story is certainly in the wheelhouse of the auteur behind Pan’s Labyrinth, Crimson Peak, and The Shape of Water, and del Toro himself has always been candid about Frankenstein being the monster that started it all for him. In a new interview with NPR, del Toro talked about everything from the look of his adaptation to his lifelong thoughts on death, generative AI, and ICE raids. Disparate subjects, yet del Toro saw the core themes of Frankenstein reflected in each one.

A poetic view of death: Some of the film’s themes echo ideas del Toro’s explored throughout his career, including misunderstood creatures, men who behave like monsters and science experiments gone awry. A self-described “groupie for death,” del Toro’s also interested in the allure — and the torment — of everlasting life. “I’m a huge fan of death. … I think it’s the metronome of our existence,” he says. “Wihtout rhythm, there is no melody, you know? It is the metronome of death that makes us value the compass of the beautiful music.”

Del Toro’s Frankenstein: It has a very Byronian, very doomed, very Wuthering Heights sort of look of a doomed hero. And when he’s first born, and is bald and almost naked, I wanted it to feel like an anatomical chart, like something newly minted. … The head is patterned after phrenology manuals from the 1800s. So they have very elegant, almost aerodynamic lines. I wanted this alabaster or marble, statue feel, so it feels like a newly minted human being.

He was 5 when his father won the lottery: Like Danny in The Shining, I could go on my tricycle for hours in the long corridors sometimes, like a magic realism novel. I would go for weeks without seeing a single adult. I would find food on the fridge, I would find clean clothes on my drawers, and I didn’t interact with many adults. I was existing in a mysterious life in an enchanted castle. … One of the things [my father] did is he bought a library and filled it with books that he never read, but I read them all. And that’s where I read the encyclopedia of anatomy and health, and that’s where I read all the classics, Moby Dick, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Edgar Allan [Poe], Oscar Wilde.

“AI? I’d rather die” My concern is not artificial intelligence, but natural stupidity. I think that’s what drives most of the world’s worst features. But I did want it to have the arrogance of Victor [Frankenstein] be similar in some ways to the tech bros. He’s kind of blind, creating something without considering the consequences and I think we have to take a pause and consider where we’re going. … AI, particularly generative AI — I am not interested, nor will I ever be interested. I’m 61, and I hope to be able to remain uninterested in using it at all until I croak. … The other day, somebody wrote me an email, said, “What is your stance on AI?” And my answer was very short. I said, “I’d rather die.”

Prepared for ICE: I have a wallet the size of a leather portfolio and I always carry my papers. I have been stopped in the past and asked to show my papers in the past, and asked pointed questions in the past, pulled aside in immigration in the past. So I have all my papers with me at all times and it is a very difficult time when there is no voice for the other. And I think that understanding that the other is you is crucial.

[From NPR]

My father’s day job was as a law professor, but he was also an expert on hypnosis and brain washing and mind control (and serial killers were just his hobby, as some of you may recall). Fun stuff. Anyway, he always enjoyed finding a poster or trinket that was on theme with his studies, which led to little girl Kismet visiting her grandparents one summer and casually commenting as we passed a shop window, “Oh look, a phrenology head.” All that to say, I loved seeing the phrenology nod! Del Toro films are nothing if not visually captivating. And speaking of the art direction, it’s funny to hear him directly cite Wuthering Heights as a reference, given that Jacob Elordi is playing both the monster and Heathcliff in films this year.

While I don’t condone adults disappearing on little kids and abandoning them to make friends with books as a healthy approach to parenting, I can see how that kind of upbringing, with so much time spent in your own imagination, could lay the foundation for a life in filmmaking. That rich literary education as a child is also what can lead a man to make the insightful comment “understanding that the other is you is crucial.” Utterly gorgeous and destined to fly over the heads of those who need to hear it most. And of course, equally astute was his line about “natural stupidity.” Truly, it’s an epidemic.

Photos credit: James Warren/Bang Showbiz/Avalon, Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon, Dave Benett/Netflix, StillMoving.Net for Netflix, Ken Woroner/Netflix