Victor Frankenstein (2015)

Victor Frankenstein (2015) came out almost a decade ago and it’s been on my watch list for almost as long. Tonight, I finally pulled the trigger on watching it after trying to find anything else to watch for this post and failing. I think subconsciously I knew that it was going to be a stinker, but I also didn’t want to write it off entirely because it does star Daniel Radcliffe, James McAvoy, and Jessica Brown Findlay, who are all well worth watching in any film, no matter how bad. Even an unintentionally campy reimagining of Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein.

This film takes itself far too seriously to be taken seriously, in other words. Is it still worth a watch? Yeah, probably, if you’ve got two hours to spend watching Radcliffe get out-scene chewed by McAvoy. I will give props to the costume designer, Jany Temime (who designed the costumes in several of the Harry Potter films, which are definitely worth mentioning in terms of tight costuming). She did a great job with the menswear in particular.

If you like frock coats, weskits, and cravats, this movie is definitely for you.

McAvoy plays the titular Victor Frankenstein, while Radcliffe plays his partner Igor.

Andrew Scott plays Inspector Turpin, a religious fanatic who is obsessed with thwarting whatever shenaniganry Frankenstein is up to.

Within the first five minutes of the film, my boyfriend had deduced that it was directed by Paul McGuigan, who directed episodes in first two seasons of *Sherlock*. Both of those seasons having very much the same stylistic flourishes as this film, as well as featuring Scott as an enigmatic bad guy foil to the “madman” hero. I guess this guy has a distinctive style.

Rounding out the gentlemen in the cast is Freddie Fox as Finnegan, who becomes Frankenstein’s wealthy benefactor, but who totally has nefarious ulterior motives.

You can tell by the way that he looks a J.C. Leyendecker drawing crossed with a Hitler Youth.

The women’s (or rather, woman’s) clothing in this film, however … Oof. The only female character is Lorelei, a former trapeze artist-turned-courtesan, who is Igor’s love interest.

Her outfits start out good and appropriate for the early-1870s (which I’m just taking a wild stab at guessing is supposed to be the general era the film is set in, so just ignore the fact that the book was written in 1818).

Even the underpinnings are good! She’s wearing a corset style appropriate for the period; the cage crinoline is spot on, with the hoop starting to shift into the elliptical shape of the late-1860s/early-1870s. And she’s even wearing a chemise under the corset!

I couldn’t find a good view of the corset, but just trust me, it’s good. And it even looks like it fits her!

This dress, however, is when things start to go off the rails. Oh sure, it looks good from the back. I know, I too was lulled into a false sense of hope that it would stick the landing from the front.

What the frock is going on with this…???

This is the final outfit she wears in the film and it’s a snooze fest. Though, to be fair, it’s hard to make a hoop skirt look good standing in tall grass.

There’s the briefest glimpse of this outfit in the film, which you only see from the shoulders up. But I love the hat and the color, so I can’t completely hate on it, even if it is giving me mad *Gone With the Wind* Curtain Dress vibes.

Have you seen Victor Frankenstein (2015)? Tell us what you thought in the comments!

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3 thoughts on “Victor Frankenstein (2015)”

Cheryl from Maryland says:

April 30, 2024 at 7:12 am

The best Frankenstein is the 1974 mini-series with Leonard Whiting as the Doctor, Michael Sarrazin as the Monster, James Mason as Dr. Polidori, Jane Seymour as Prima, the female Monster, etc., etc. Watch it for free on the Internet Archive — https://archive.org/details/frankenstein-the-true-story

Lily Lotus Rose says:

April 30, 2024 at 5:42 pm

ooooh, I LOVED this movie! I haven’t seen it in forever, but I remember thinking it was great fun!!

1. EFMD says:
  
  May 1, 2024 at 3:45 am
  
  You are a person of excellent taste! (I have a soft spot for this film, mostly because it’s something of a Horror-Comedy pretending to be a Hammer Horror: also because I have a very soft spot for Mr Freddie Fox and his burgeoning career as a Sinister Blond in Film & Television).
  
  I do feel that Sarah Lorraine might be a tad disingenuous in (gently) tasking VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN with the sin of anachronism when it was Messers James Whale and Boris Karloff who really got the ball rolling on that score.