Director – Zelda Williams, Screenplay – Diablo Cody, Producers – Diablo Cody & Mason Novick, Photography – Paula Huidobro, Music – Isabella Summers, Visual Effects – Brainstorm Digital (Supervisor – Richard Friedlander), Animation – Tulips and Chimneys, Special Effects Supervisor – David K. Nami, Creature Makeup Effects – Legacy Effects (Supervisors – Shane Mahan, Lindsay MacGowan & J. Alan Scott), Production Design – Mark Worthington. Production Company – MXN/Lollipop Woods.
Cast
Kathryn Newton (Lisa Swallows), Cole Sprouse (The Creature), Carla Gugino (Janet), Joe Chrest (Dale Swallows), Liza Soberano (Taffy), Henry Eikenberry (Michael Trent), Bryce Romero (Doug), Joey Bree Harris (Tamara), Jenna Davis (Lori), Trina LaFargue (Tricia), Paula Andino (Misty)
Plot
It is 1989. Teenager Lisa Swallows feels alienated, spending her time at the local cemetery where she talks to the statue over the grave of a man who died in 1837. After Lisa’s mother was killed by an axe murderer, her father has remarried to the officious Janet but Lisa does not get on with her. After a bolt of lightning strikes the grave of the man she talks to in the cemetery, Lisa is startled when the resurrected man stumbles into the house. She cleans him up and hides him in the closet. When Janet threatens to have Lisa committed, the creature kills her. The creature then takes Janet’s ear and with the use of the electricity from a shorting tanning bed, Lisa is able to spark it to life. She then begins to complete the creature’s missing parts with a patchwork of items taken from others they are forced to kill.
A few years ago, Diablo Cody was heralded as the latest new find with her screenplay for Juno (2007), which won her an Academy Award for her very first script. From there, Cody went onto a host of other projects including the scripts for the horror film Jennifer’s Body (2009), Young Adult (2011), Ricki and the Flash (2015) and Tully (2018) and creating the tv series United States of Tara (2009-11), even making her own directorial debut with the ensemble comedy Paradise (2013). Cody is clearly a horror fan, with Juno containing scenes debating the merits of cult horror films like The Wizard of Gore (1970) and Suspiria (1977). Cody also signed up to write the screenplay for Evil Dead (2013) remake, although did not end with credit on the finished film.
Lisa Frankenstein is the directorial debut of Zelda Williams, the daughter of actor Robin Williams (who is apparently named after the The Legend of Zelda videogame). Zelda has a number of credits as an actress in films ranging from Don’t Look Up (2009), Detention (2010), Luster (2010) and The Frankenstein Brothers (2012), which is surprisingly not a Frankenstein film despite the title.
Lisa Frankenstein is modernised comedy take on the Frankenstein Film. The Frankenstein film has a long lineage on film that goes back to Thomas Edison’s Frankenstein (1910) but took off in a major way with Universal’s Frankenstein (1931) starring Boris Karloff. In homage to the Universal originals, there is a black-and-white dream sequence here where Kathryn Newton wakes up with a Nefertiti hairstyle a la Elsa Lanchester as The Bride in Bride of Frankenstein (1935). (For a more detailed overview see Frankenstein Films).
Lisa Frankenstein might have been cute if its thunder had not been stolen by Poor Things (2023), which became a huge critical success, and succeeded in turning the Frankenstein myth on its head with hilarious results. There are undeniable similarities between the two – both films seek to retell the Frankenstein myth, both come with a comedy focus and both are made celebrating the 2020s Girl Power message (although in quite different ways). Indeed, 2024 seems to herald a revival of the Frankenstein film and not long after this was also The Frankenstein Legacy (2024).
The Creature (Cole Sprouse) and Lisa Frankenstein (Kathryn Newton)
I looked forward to Lisa Frankenstein as Diablo Cody was making a return to genre material, not only as writer but also producer, meaning that what emerged was most likely her own vision. As expected, the film over-spills with genre homages – Kathryn Newton sits watching Day of the Dead (1985) on tv, has a glow-in-the-dark decal for A Trip to the Moon (1902) on her closet door; and gets to drop the line “Damnit, Janet,” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) to Carla Gugino’s character who is named Janet.
Aside from that, the film has a killer soundtrack with tracks from great bands of the 1980s era (and personal favourites for this author) including Echo and the Bunnymen, The Chameleons, Pixies, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Galaxie 500 to largely forgotten groups like Blue Peter and When in Rome. At the same time, Cole Sprouse’s creature is outfitted in assorted t-shirts for bands like Violent Femmes and Joy Division, while Kathryn Newton has Bauhaus posters on her wall and even has a section of dialogue explaining who The Cure are to the creature. You get the impression that Cody was indulging and stocking the film with tracks from her favourite playlist.
On the other hand, having come not long after watching Poor Things, Lisa Frankenstein feels much the lesser of the two. Poor Things did amazing things whereas Lisa Frankenstein is stuck down around the level of something cutsie like Lisa Frankenstein: The College Years (1991), Bolt Neck (1999) or Frankenweenie (2012) that offered a modern teenage spin on the Frankenstein film. Now this does have the boost of Diablo Cody’s sharp, wryly ironic dialogue (although this is not quite as sharp as it is in past, abovementioned efforts) and Kathryn Newton, who seems to be emerging as a fresh new face who is going places, in the lead. But where Poor Things came with a feminist message, Lisa Frankenstein seems to have no more to it than an array of cute colour schemes and the ultimate message of Kathryn Newton just pining to find the right Gothic boyfriend.
