structure of the story is similar. Eg dodgy ion currents might be down to an enemy messing with them, so functionally the same as a malicious spirit. You might therefore get a similar story with different clothes. Does that make one SF and the other not?
Interesting one based one something else I’ve just read Frankenstein. It’s handwavium science as to how the Creature is made the story is far more about the consequences - the world still hangs together due to a lack of much explanation
But I think it’s a key point that the Creature has been made by a human? So ideas about overreaching humanity, discovery of secrets of life, responsibility of knowledge and esp, the power we have just discovered to remake the world. That has a moral weight which a “magic” story wouldn’t have?
Of course part of that is, for us, 200 years of hindsight because we have seen science grow and Frankenstein seems so prophetic. But again, a monster-made-by-magic wouldn’t - I think? - hit those notes?
Which is more my point - it’s the looser technical idea and I’m more interested in the consequences that idea has on the world - SF for me has some technical/social edge but how that itself comes to being I can be forgiving of