You Have to Watch David Harbour’s Weird ‘Frankenstein’ Mockumentary

You might be surprised by this unexpected crossover between Stranger Things and Frankenstein that you never realized you needed. One of Netflix’s hidden gems is a half-hour mockumentary released in 2019 that’s part PBS Masterpiece Theater and part Orson Welles vanity show parody starring David Harbour (Thunderbolts*).

Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein hits that nostalgia for watching public broadcasting with your grandma while sitting on plastic-wrapped couches and eating hard candy. Truly, while watching it, it felt like I got drop-kicked into that core childhood memory.  David Harbour plays himself as David Harbour the third, who unearths his father David Harbour Jr.’s (who he also plays) Frankenstein-inspired project. Experiencing daddy issues, Harbour III grapples with an existential crisis brought on by his mad genius dad’s love for the theater over, perhaps, his own son. I cannot stress how unseriously serious everyone is in this, especially Harbour, who relishes the larger-than-life movie star that was his fake-real father.

Complete with a dramatic made-for-TV music score, the mockumentary (directed by Daniel Gray Longino and written by John Levenstein) follows David Harbour’s journey in unpacking his dad’s life work and love for the stage. The TV play within the special chronicles the Welles-esque capitulation into selling oneself out while grasping for one more artistic success.

The play we watch throughout the mockumentary has that PBS TV station filter lighting and the weirdest plot. Frankenstein, the doctor (Harbour), invites over an alluring potential investor, Miss Macbeth (Kate Berlant), to fund building another monster. His assistant Sal (Alex Ozero as ’80s heartthrob Joey Vallejo) poses as the doctor while the real doctor poses as the monster (or does he), which hen suddenly it cuts to an ad for a steak restaurant Harbour Jr. is endorsing while eating his feelings of jealousy toward Vallejo—a feud that may have led to Harbour Jr. cutting the brakes of his competition’s car.

Yeah, it’s definitely convoluted in that Adult Swim style of surreal humor but on Netflix, much like the Kristen Bell murder mystery farce The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window.

It’s so meta, and for that reason we think it’s a must-watch this season leading into the release of Guillermo Del Toro’s authentic Frankenstein feature for the streamer and Stranger Things season five. Harbour is definitely having fun as a lumbering star of the stage that a mere televised special cannot contain. There are even interstitials of him proclaiming, “That’s how I got into Juilliard!†on his mentor’s Inside the Actor’s Studio-style school of acting program.

The kicker? His mentor is played by Alfred Molina, who is relegated to being a sea captain of few words on Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein.  It’s so unhinged to see the great actor just show up for kicks.

The random nature of the special within the show leaves you with so many more questions than answers. Take, for instance, Harbour attempting to rationalize an irrational man who is completely made up and then being that very man who played two other men. I threw my hands up in the air so many times because it was just so ridiculous. Was he playing Frankenstein, the doctor pretending to be Frankenstein the creature? Or was he Frankenstein, the creature pretending to be his creator to get the investment to make a mate?  The galaxy brain that went into this is astounding. 

After watching it, it became the most quoted thing around my house or when watching movies. The “Chekhov’s Gun†gun, called out upon introduction in the first act (“It has to go off in the last!â€), became something I think of when I watch movies to review. But the most inside joke that lives on has to be “And that’s how I got into Juilliard!â€

We chatted with Harbour about it in 2023, which was before the release of his portrayal of Frankenstein for James Gunn’s Creature Commandos for DC Studios; he regaled us with his best Harbour Jr. and discussed why he was drawn to Mary Shelley’s creation: “The most interesting thing to me about Frankenstein’s monster in general is that he was created to be this sort of erudite, intellectual, romantic, brilliant person, and he winds up being a monster. I mean, that complexity can make for some pretty ripe comedy and also pathos—that a guy who considers himself one thing is viewed by others as something very different.â€

Contemplate his take on the monster, the man behind the monster, and his own father behind the man that David Harbour would go on to become before Hopper’s return on Stranger Things season 5 in the clip below for a taste.

Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein is streaming on Netflix.

 

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