Since its initial publication in 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has continually captivated its audience. To this day, the novel’s themes, which include authorship, selfhood, the creation of human life, and the parent-child (or creator-creation) relationship, continue to fascinate and to invite new readings and interpretations. Shelley’s enduring creation, her eponymous scientist Victor Frankenstein, and his Creature, have been revived in various incarnations through countless continuations of the original story. Who has not heard of Frankenstein? It is into this tradition of retelling and adaptation that director Stuart Beattie and writer Kevin Grevioux enter with their 2014 film I Frankenstein. Here, Victor Frankenstein is dead, leaving his Creature to navigate a supernatural world populated by warring gargoyles and demons, ruled by Queen Leonore and the demon-prince Naberius respectively. Within this backdrop the Creature’s narrative and personal journey is often side-lined, and when the Creature’s viewpoint is presented it is often confused or unoriginal. With the abundance of interpretations of Frankenstein’s Creature, it is a hard task to present a new and original perspective. Clearly, this is Beattie and Grevioux’s intention (having also produced the original screenplay and graphic novel concept). Their film, however, does not live up to this ambition. The failure of I Frankenstein both in terms of its commercial and critical reception is perhaps surprising given Grevioux’s previous writing success with the Underworld franchise, but it does demonstrate that simply constructing a supernatural world and adding a well-established character such as Frankenstein’s Creature will not guarantee a film’s success. Nevertheless, the film does engage with several key themes raised by Shelley’s novel. The novel itself is a constant (and at times a physical) presence throughout the film, fulfilling the ‘found manuscript’ trope conventional to Gothic narratives and also functioning as a literal signifier regarding the issues of authorship, selfhood and parentage. Before we are transported (alongside the Creature) to the present day the film opens with a series of montage shots depicting Victor Frankenstein’s pursuit of the Creature through the arctic, as well portraying the Creature’s creation, grounding the film in a post-novel world. The narrative voice-over is provided by the Creature, who also narrates the final scenes of the film. This technique emulates the narrative frame of the novel, although while Victor Frankenstein’s narrative encloses the Creature’s story in the novel, here the use of the Creature’s voice to provide this frame indicates the primacy of the Creature’s perspective in this adaptation. Moreover, while the novel ends with the death of Victor Frankenstein, his death engenders the opening of the film. The Creature’s narration describes the death of his creator, and his subsequent decision to bury his maker in the Frankenstein family cemetery. It is here that we are introduced to the gargoyles and demons, as the Creature is first ambushed by one group, and then the other. It is also in this cemetery that the Journal of Victor Frankenstein is discovered upon the corpse of its author. Visually, this sequence is compelling. The demons appear in the garb of monks, as if they had stepped out from the pages of a Gothic novel. The monk’s cowl partly hides their faces, and accentuates their animalistic mouths and razor-like teeth. This immediately highlights their supernatural status, and we are also treated to close up shots of their talon-like fingers while they growl at the Creature. One demon appears without a cowl, and his face transforms onscreen into a visage even more demonic, complete with horns. Whilst the demons begin their fight with the Creature, several shots of inanimate gargoyles surrounding the cemetery are interspersed throughout the sequence. These figures also undergo a transformation: gradually coming alive, and turning into winged, angelic warriors before assuming a human appearance after the fight. Frequently throughout the narrative the Creature and the Journal are paired together, seen here for the first time as the gargoyles discover the journal alongside the unconscious body of the creature, and at several moments one often stands for the other. This reveals a perspective in which the Journal and the Creature are viewed as interchangeable: both are products of Victor Frankenstein, and the pages of the Journal and the body of the Creature are ‘proof that God is now no longer the sole creator of man.’ A notable example of this interchangeability occurs as the Queen Leonore is captured by the demons, who then propose an exchange of bodies. The demons demand the Creature in exchange for the Queen, but, instead, the gargoyles present the ‘private scientific journal of Victor Frankenstein’ as a stand in for the body of the Creature. The Journal is accepted, and the transaction completed. This interchangeability is, however, questioned as the film progresses. The Creature displays an interest in possessing and reading the Journal for himself (although this is incongruous with Shelley’s novel, in which the Creature demonstrates his intimate knowledge of the Journal and his creation through his narrative), but finally he decides to destroy the Journal. Towards the end of the film, in a scene clearly intended to mark a monumental moment in the Creature’s history, he is shown throwing the Journal into a fire. The flames slowly consume the pages of the Journal, which is conveniently open at a sketch of the Creature’s face, until all that remains is the physical embodiment of the sketch and the realisation of Victor Frankenstein’s ideas: his creation in the flesh. While this scene contains a lot of symbolic potential, the weakness of I Frankenstein stems from too there being an excess of symbolism entirely incongruous to the film’s main narrative. I Frankenstein exploits many distinguished themes and tropes from the novel, and is filled with references to the original story and the adaptations that followed it. Drawing on the theme of parentage and creation, we can read this scene as illustrating the Creature’s rejection of his relationship to Victor Frankenstein and refusing to live the life predetermined by his creator. In destroying the Journal, the Creature is destroying the only physical object (besides his body) that connects him with Victor Frankenstein, and further chooses to forge his own identity and purpose in life. However, the final words of the film create a disjunction with this interpretation as the Creature narrates, ‘I – descender of the demon horde. I – my father’s son. I – Frankenstein.’ These three statements cement the ‘I’ of the narration with specific identities, and crucially declare the Creature’s acceptance of his familial relationship with Victor Frankenstein along with the name Frankenstein itself. The relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his creation is shown, within Shelley’s novel, to be complex, and at times, this is played out through discussions about the Creature’s name and identity. In the centuries that have followed, there have been countless ongoing debates within critical and popular fields regarding the Creature’s name, gender, and even status as a human being. Frequently, the identity and name Victor Frankenstein are mistakenly ascribed to his creation, which is something that I Frankenstein sets out to avoid. In referring to the Creature as ‘Frankenstein,’ and allowing the Creature to self-identify with the name, the film sets out only to establish a paternal relationship between creator and creation. This is demonstrated by Naberius’ address to the Creature: ‘you must be Frankenstein…We are all the sons of our fathers, are we not?’ The ties between Victor Frankenstein and the Creature are therefore shown to be inviolable, but the creator and creation are also portrayed as individuals, or, in other words, they are both Frankenstein, but they are not the same Frankenstein. I Frankenstein clearly aims to highlight this distinction, and a key element of the film is Beattie and Grevioux’s decision to name the Creature Adam. This choice emulates an infamous passage of the novel in which the Creature references John Milton’s Paradise Lost, stating that ‘I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel.’ Shelley’s presentation of the name Adam, and the Creature’s acceptance and rejection of this identity is nuanced and provides rich material for interpretation. Conversely, the use of the name within the film appears more clichéd. On the surface, the name functions as an appealing allusion to the original novel, however, nothing is made of this connection beyond its function as the trope of the first man in creation as codified in the Bible. Indeed, the Creature’s own consideration for his name is not addressed as the Gargoyle Queen first states ‘I should like to call you Adam,’ before Naberius affords him the family name of Frankenstein. In these moments, the Creature does not approve or deny these names, and it is only later that we learn of his acceptance of them. Overall, I Frankenstein is a film that fails to live up to its potential. While the film exploits its source material and presents some interesting perspectives on the Creature’s life after Victor Frankenstein’s death, it does not add anything new to the tradition of Frankenstein adaptations besides the supernatural backdrop of gargoyles and demons. Woven into this supernatural world is the concept of creating life, and a key scene within the film presents a discussion of the levels of electricity required to imbue the body of the Creature with life. It is remarked that, ‘if it survived that at birth, what would it take to kill it?’ and this presents a fitting analogy for the future of Shelley’s creation: although this film is a failure, it will not kill the enduring myth of Frankenstein.