EHe saw James Whale’s “Frankenstein” when he was 7 years old and Victor Erice’s “The Spirit of the Hive” as a teenager. Still a child, he realized the fascination of the man who defies God and, already old enough to reflect on what he saw, the metaphorical potential of that story. And he wasn’t even close to 20 years old when he read Mary Shelley’s gothic novel and thought it was great. There was the trigger that launched Guillermo del Toro’s vocation and career, from the outset as a specialist in special makeup effects, an activity he practiced for years (how can you not be fascinated by what, in 1931, Jack Pierce did with Boris Karloff’s face to invent the Monster’s ‘mask’?). It’s no wonder that, from the beginning, his main objective, as a director, was to make his “Frankenstein”. It has done so now, thanks to Netflix’s deep pockets, which made financing possible for 120 million dollars, which isn’t even a lot, considering the operatic scale of the film. Unfortunately, unlike some more fortunate territories, where it was premiered in theaters, Portugal did not have the grace of seeing it premiered on screens large enough for us to appreciate it on the appropriate scale. Falls, directly, into the streamingwhere it is one of the most sensational events at the beginning of November.