Frankenstein (2025) with Jessica Barness

In Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein, Oscar Isaac stars as Dr. Frankenstein who toils away in his lab to create life from inanimate objects, resulting in his creation, his creature portrayed by Jacob Elordi who becomes a victim hell-bent on revenge. Jessica Barness may not have worked on the movie, but she's a big fan and joins the show to talk about characters and production design, as well as magic, fantasy, mythology, and genre. Is Frankenstein a horror movie, tragedy, science fiction? Perhaps it's a genre mashup? And what about a sequel to this? What could happen, or would not happen, if there's a continuation of del Toro's movie? - Professor Jessica Barness studies how designers talk about the work they do, and makes work that reflects on it. She's written about design discourse, collage, flexi-disc vinyl records, and reader perceptions, while also making digital machines and offbeat low-res videos. She writes loudly, if less officially, at The Quiet Design Scholar. She is a Professor of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University, where she coordinates graduate studies and teaches design research and professional practices. https://www.jessicabarness.com/ https://jessicabarness.substack.com/ https://www.whatscholarshiplookslike.net/ https://www.kent.edu/vcd/profile/jessica-barness - Frankenstein (2025) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1312221/ https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/frankenstein-ending-explained - Mary Wollstonecraft: Britain's first feminist, via BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/articles/zkpk382 - Other movies discussed: The Bride! (2026) The Devil's Backbone (2001) Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) Monty Python's Meaning of Life (1983) Nosferatu (2024) The Odyssey (2026) Pan's Labyrinth (2006) Prometheus (2012) The Shape of Water (2017) Until the End of the World (1991)