Should horror scare you or turn you on? That was the question I had after a weekend of watching both Frankenstein and the new series Welcome to Derry. After crawling through endless social media posts where people fawned over the new design of the monster, I decided to at least give the new Frankenstein movie a chance. Not only was I bored throughout its entirety, but I wondered if its rave reviews were based on the fact that it featured a monster who was more Paris runway model than hideously horrific creature. Either way, the film left me terribly deflated and eager for something to fill that void. Thankfully, the show Welcome to Derry has done a successful job at keeping the horror alive, along with my attention span.
Where Frankenstein failed to find any frights, the Derry show kept me on the edge of my couch in certain moments, wincing at the screen at such disgusting displays of beautiful brutality. Frankenstein tried to weave several threads into its story that didn’t make sense to me. The female character bounces from Dr. Frankenstein’s brother to Dr. Frankenstein himself and then suddenly shifts her love interest to a creature she met for all of five minutes. This rapid change of devotion left me feeling hollow and unsympathetic toward her character, something that most likely shaped how I viewed the rest of the story.
Welcome to Derry, on the other hand, has done a brilliant job of not only weaving in several Stephen King easter eggs, but it’s played out almost like reading a King novel. The pacing is steady and building toward something, all while keeping you tense and eager to see what’s around the corner, despite how creepy or disturbing it may be. The show subverts expectations and creates characters that linger in your mind after you watch, at least for me anyway. I understand art is totally subjective, but that’s the whole purpose of this article: to share my perspective toward two giants of the genre who are sharing the spotlight.
My own personal disdain aside, I am glad to see Frankenstein is doing well, and people are praising director Guillermo del Toro for his passionate efforts on a film he’s been wanting to make for ages. The man has been a blessing for the horror community, and his work will live on as some of the greatest the genre has ever seen. On the other side of the coin, you have a director in Andy Muschietti who has seemingly found his footing in these Stephen King stories. While IT: Chapter 2 didn’t perform as well as the first entry, it’s clear from this new series that he has his finger on the racing pulse of not just King’s work, but his fans’ yearning to dive headfirst into the vast universe King created over the years.
If I were to recommend either entry, I would start with Welcome to Derry if you are interested in long format storytelling with gruesome surprises around every corner. If you are someone with a taste for more theatrics, almost that of a stage performance, I would easily recommend Frankenstein. The acting is over the top, and the story embraces that intense portrayal of theatricality, which at times for me was cringe worthy, but the reviews don’t lie, and plenty of people are praising it for reasons well beyond my own understanding.
Whichever you choose to watch, I feel as if they are both great examples of how the horror genre is still as strong as ever. It wasn’t long ago when the thought of mentioning a horror movie for Best Picture at the Oscars was as uncommon as Dracula eating at the Olive Garden, but here we are. We live in a time when horror is not only abundant, but truly capable of going toe to toe with even the snootiest of dramas. As a lifelong fan of horror movies, that makes me as happy as Pennywise with a sewer full of souls.
