Here’s what we’re about to do. We’re about to go back. How far back? 1818 but also the 1980s because Frankenstein is shambling back for a revival. We had a fair warning when the Oscar-nominated Poor Things pulled out the jumper cables and charged them up. Coming up, there’s a Guillermo Del Toro rendition, then a Bride of Frank… version from Maggie Gyllenhaal, and also We Shall Be Monsters, a YA novel by Tara Sim, described as “Frankenstein meets Indian mythology.” Right here, right now, between the upcoming and the poor thing, we have Lisa Frankenstein from writer Diablo Cody and first-time director Zelda Williams.
Lisa (Kathryn Newton) is a gloomy high schooler with a comedically horrifying past. Since she’s totally goth (on the inside), she craves a connection with someone who isn’t judging her while she judges them. Lisa’s step-sister Taffy (Liza Soberano) is too perfect to understand her, her step-mother (Carla Gugino) is too terrible, and her father (Joe Chrest) is too apathetic. But do you know who listens? The dead folks down at the condemned cemetery. Especially the drop-dead gorgeous—hehe, no, I will not apologize—Stein (Cole Sprouse) from the 1800s. If only he wasn’t so lethargic, Stein and Lisa would be 2-N-Love-4-Ever. Bring on the drugs, the green lightning, and the longing because…how else do you resurrect the dead? Let the undead love begin. It’s all so disgustingly lovely—except for the decomposing slime, which is just disgustingly disgusting and, apparently, stinky. The problem is that Stein has zombie tendencies, but not in the way you think. Somebody must die, and once the bodies start dropping they keep piling up. That’s how the acid-trippy world of Lisa Frank combines with Mary Shelley’s monster to give us: Lisa Frank & Stein (get it?).
If this neon-coated, big-haired, 80s monster had an ingredients list, it’d be the criminality of Bonnie and Clyde—but make it a rom-com, the mix-and-match horror of Jeepers Creepers, and a big ole dose of psychotic Cinderella with unhealthy teen angst levels.
You really want to see Lisa Frankenstein now, don’t you? I get it. I enjoyed the first act a lot. Newton is adorable and Sprouse plays it like Bela Lugosi but with campy horror delight. And this movie is so very 80s. With the gothic leanings of Edward Scissorhands, and its reversal on movies like Weird Science, but this time the boy is the fixer-upper and the girl gets to remodel him. There’s also an undercurrent of revenge that makes you giggle. And Soberano as Taffy is my new favorite trope. Forget the “mean,” this is a “keen” girl and a high school queen.
Here’s where Lisa Frankenstein lost me, there’s not enough connective tissue. We never learn why Stein is the way he is; or how he might or might not connect to Lisa’s past. Or even the history of the town. How about, what the hell even happened in Lisa’s past? Who killed her mom and why? I have suspicions but no proof. I need to understand how it’s all connected for the story to be satisfying. I’m not sure why I expected cohesion from a movie stitched together from various parts, but I did. Otherwise, everything is too random. Even though the ending is darkly poetic, I need more backstory. While sitting in the theater, I imagined Diablo Cody got sucked into a macabre 80s dreamscape one night, she woke up and wrote it down in a rainbows and death notebook beside her bed, and then they made the movie.
In the end, Lisa Frankenstein is goth-girl madness unleashed. The dialogue is witty and the story is happily unhinged, but it’s underdeveloped—this undead heart misses a few beats.
