We’re All Hot for Frankenstein’s Creature

Hot monsters are nothing new. Beast, of the animated Beauty and the Beast film, was a sexual awakening for many who grew up on the Disney classics, and there are endless flavors of monster (or mythical creature) erotica for those who are so inclined. But there’s something “right now” about the thirst for a monster like the Creature. I can’t help but compare his fans to those who lusted for Count Orlok in Nosferatu, played by a barely recognizable Bill Skarsgård in a prosthetic nose, a bald cap, and a comically oversized mustache.

While Count Orlok is decidedly less wholesome than the Creature (fine, he’s pretty evil), they share certain similarities outside of a sickly complexion and booming voice. To start, they are self-possessed, unconcerned with ego or performing anything other than their truest, freakiest selves. They have uncomplicated desires, and they vocalize them. They are misunderstood and long for companionship. Frankly, they’re a tad pathetic.

Could it be that in this era of toxic masculinity, performative males, and FaceTuned Instagram models, that angsty monsters are simply irresistible by comparison? Possibly. A devoted monster who displays certain hallmarks of masculinity—like size and strength and protective instincts—and exists in a fantasy land devoid of, say, a president who’s been found liable for sexual abuse, sounds downright dreamy compared to some of the straight men on the apps my friends lament to me about. But I’d argue that in reality, it’s not actually that deep. Monsters are just in right now.

Earlier this year, Universal released Wolf Man, a werewolf monster movie starring Christopher Abbot and Julia Garner; in March of next year, Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale will star as the bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s monster in the aptly named, The Bride!. Then there were the slew of monster romances, like Lisa Frankenstein and Your Monster, two tales of forbidden monster love, which were released in 2024.

At the heart of it, our collective monster thirst is about yearning—about witnessing a being who is tortured for want of a woman. As a culture we simply can’t get enough of that all-encompassing yearn, that push and pull between desire and self-restraint. From Pride & Prejudice to Twilight to The Summer I Turned Pretty, yearning will never not be hot. Case in point: 2026’s two most-anticipated romantic films, People We Meet on Vacation and Wuthering Heights, as well as the next season of Bridgerton, center around men who just can’t stay away, wasting away in their self-imposed cages. Theirs is a love without pretense, a love that exists beyond the confines of coupledom or tradition.

This is no knock against Oscar Isaac’s Victor Frankenstein, the tortured evil (emphasis on evil) genius lusting after his brother’s bride, who fulfills his Hot Bad Guy duties with vim and vigor. In this case, his hotness is owed wholly to Isaac. His character, though sympathetic at first, is all ego and overrun ambition and carelessness in a way that will never hold a candle to his creation, his sweet, sexy Creature.