David Bridges
Highlights
- Promotion: The marketing for Frankenstein prominently features Jacob Elordi’s character, the Creature.
- Transformation: Elordi underwent an extensive transformation using 42 prosthetics for his role.
- Team Effort: It took eight crew members 10 hours to apply the full-body prosthetics for Elordi.
- Release Info: Frankenstein will premiere on Netflix on November 7 after a limited theatrical release.
Almost a year ago to the day, the promotional lead-up to 2024’s buzziest horror film, Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, was still playing it close to the chest, abstaining from revealing Bill Skarsgård’s mustachioed Count and urging folks to flock to the theaters to see him on the big screen for themselves. In 2025, the promotional team behind Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein has dropped all pretenses, giving prospective moviegoers an eyeful of Jacob Elordi’s Creature in advance.
In a series of posts on the official Frankenstein X/Twitter account, fans were met with character portraits of the ensemble, all following in the wake of Elordi’s Creature. Before today’s thread of posts, the only shots fans got of Elordi’s enigmatic character were stray trailer glimpses (as well as the odd DiscussingFilm post of Elordi hugging his dog), obscured by a heavy cloak, as he smoldered at the camera, à la Alexandre Cabanel’s “The Fallen Angel.”
Unlike Nosferatu, commenters under the post were more than willing to air out their thirst for the 6′ 5″ undead creature.
Diverting from the train of thought on folks’ downbadness for Elordi’s character onto more artistic appreciations for his heavy makeup job, Variety reports Frankenstein’s production crew used 42 prosthetics to transform the Euphoria actor into del Toro’s monster. More specifically: 14 pieces for his head and neck. The Variety piece went on to detail that it took eight people 10 hours to apply Elordi’s full-body prosthetics. Furthermore, his prosthetics needed to be applied 50 times. In layman’s terms, that’s a lot of time spent in a makeup chair.
As mentioned up top, Elordi wasn’t the only actor to receive character poster social media treatment in the lead-up to Frankenstein‘s limited theatrical release. Joining him were castmates Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, Mia Goth as Elizabeth Harlander, Christoph Waltz as Heinrich Harlander, and Felix Kammerer as William Frankenstein.
In io9’s Frankenstein review, we praised del Toro’s film, writing, “It truly feels like a movie he was meant to make. A filmmaker at the height of his powers. And he’s given us a film that, even with a few little issues here and there, we’re likely to enjoy from now until forever.”
Frankenstein is playing in select theaters, with plans to expand over the next few weeks. It’ll then premiere on Netflix on November 7.
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Brandon Fletcher
Daniel Mercer
