Book Review - Remaking the Monster: Transmedia Adaptations of Frankenstein’s Creature by Alissa Burger

Burger, Alissa. Remaking the Monster: Transmedia Adaptations of Frankenstein’s Creature. Bloomsbury Academic, 2026.

Book review by Holly Hoffmann

No literary character has been more enduring than Frankenstein’s Creature but with that endurance comes the difficulty of saying anything new about him. However, Burger’s synthesis of the Creature does an admirable job of being both accessible and analytical, demonstrating how a familiar figure can acquire new meanings as he moves across time, genres, media, and cultural contexts. Rather than approaching adaptations in terms of their fidelity to Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Burger reiterates how “fidelity to the source text is not a priority for these adaptations” (2) and examines how successive reinterpretations transform the Creature, revealing changing attitudes toward monstrosity, otherness, scientific progress, and what it means to be human.

Burger, an associate professor of English at Culver-Stockton College who specializes in horror and the gothic, has published widely on popular culture, adaptation, and genre. In Remaking the Monster, she organizes her exploration into two sections: “Themes” and “Formats.” The first examines subjects such as Boris Karloff’s masterful portrayal, encounters with the Creature, communities of monsters, Gothic prestige, and the Creature’s desirability and sexuality. The second considers adaptations across graphic narratives, animation, board games, video games, and collectible figures. This structure allows Burger to explore both the cultural meanings attached to the Creature and the ways different media shape audiences’ encounters with him.

The book’s argument is that the Creature’s enduring appeal lies in his ability to reflect the concerns of a particular moment in time. His story also invites audiences to question the boundaries between the human and the monstrous. Burger’s approach encourages readers to see adaptations not as secondary versions of Shelley’s novel, but as cultural works that actively reshape its meanings.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its range. Burger moves beyond the familiar territory of film adaptations to examine how audiences encounter the Creature through interactive and material forms. Her discussion of board and video games is particularly interesting because it considers how games change the relationship between audience, story, and the “collaborative nature of gameplay” (158). Players may inhabit the role of a creator, engage with the world surrounding the Creature, or experience events from his perspective. These participatory formats don’t just reproduce the same narrative. Rather, the players experience a degree of “agency and control that they lack in reading or watching other versions of the same narrative, gaining a new perspective through their participation” (159). Burger’s attention to such varied examples makes a compelling case for understanding popular culture as a site of literary and cultural interpretation.

The book’s interdisciplinary method is well suited to its subject, bringing together close readings of adaptations across different media. Its broad scope, however, occasionally comes at the expense of depth. Readers interested in a particular film, game, or adaptation may wish for more sustained analysis of individual works and their specific historical contexts. Nevertheless, the variety of examples supports Burger’s larger argument: the Creature’s cultural significance depends not on a single definitive representation, but on the continuing reinterpretation of his story.

Remaking the Monster will appeal to readers interested in Gothic literature, horror, adaptation studies, film, and popular culture. It could also be valuable in undergraduate classrooms, particularly courses examining the relationship between literature and other media. Instructors could use Burger’s examples to invite students to compare adaptations, consider how medium influences interpretation, and examine how monsters reflect cultural fears and desires. By demonstrating that the Creature’s story is “endlessly malleable, omnipresent yet everchanging” (217), Burger offers an engaging account of a literary figure whose life continues well beyond the pages of Shelley’s novel.

Byline:

Holly Hoffmann is an academic librarian at St. Mary's University, and holds a Master's in Library and Information Studies and a Master's in English Literature. She is interested in the intersection between literature, popular culture, and information literacy pedagogy.