Jonah Naplan   February 9, 2024

“Lisa Frankenstein” is one of the most bizarre configurations of a movie that I’ve seen within the last year. Like its central monster, the film seems comprised of random limbs and arteries loosely sewn and cut together from different places and projects, some of which are completely unrelated to one another and don’t mesh well when interconnected. In the recent decades, we really haven’t gotten anything worthy of being hailed as a “new 80s classic,” meaning a film that didn’t actually release then, but could have and should have. “Lisa Frankenstein” is yet another promising attempt to ascend into that category, but it never quite makes it there, despite a strong creative vision and solid performances all around, most of which are frequently betrayed by a mixed script that combines all sorts of edgy themes, but makes for major tonal inconsistencies when looking at the bigger picture.

It’s a real shame, too. “Lisa Frankenstein” is the brainchild of writer Diablo Cody, who wrote “Juno” and “Jennifer’s Body,” and director Zelda Williams who’s the daughter of the beloved Robin Williams. But though this dynamic duo has a clear objective in the story they want to tell, it never thematically lands in the way that it should, especially considering all the talent and charisma in front of the camera. What had the potential to evolve into a new cult classic only rarely manifests into something truly cool and unique, reminding us of what a gem it is when a horror/comedy truly works on all levels.

The movie takes place in 1989, and focuses on depressed teenager Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton), who spends most of her screentime outfitted in a variety of goth and Madonna-inspired costumes, the impeccable work of designer Meagan McLaughlin. As an adolescent, Lisa witnessed the bloody murder of her mother and has since closeted herself away from the rest of the world, leaving her few real friends. She has an eccentric but kind cheerleader stepsister named Taffy (Liza Soberano), who means well but is ultimately too wrapped up in her own troubles to always be there, while her father, who was also struck by grief, can only do so much uplifting, courtesy of Lisa’s villainous stepmom Janet (Carla Gugino, who plays evil so well you want to sucker punch her in the face).

So Lisa spends her waking hours daydreaming at a scrawny cemetery, sitting next to her favorite gravestone emblazoned with the stone head of a dashing young man who looks a lot like common teenage crush Cole Sprouse. On one particularly aggravating day, Lisa makes a wish that she, too, could just disappear into the ground with the deceased, never to be seen again; a plea completely misunderstood by the corpse himself, who arises from the dead to join her in the mortal world. What follows is one of the oddest romances I’ve seen in film in my recent memory, one that echoes “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “The Shape of Water,” and grimy body horror flicks like “Evil Dead Rise” and “Renfield.” 

One of the biggest problems with “Lisa Frankenstein” is that the romance at its center is just too weird to fully resonate. On paper, it should work well, in the same way that other mismatched couples in horror or rom-com movies throughout history have worked, but something about this one just doesn’t wash. It helps nobody that the primary appeal of this script is to constantly one-up itself in vile ways that reckon with mutilated ears, hands, legs, and eventually genitalia, selling itself as something so despicable and unnerving that we won’t be able to look away. But the frustrating reality is that “Lisa Frankenstein” only ends up coming off as a film with a big ego that’s only satisfied when we react and laugh with it but never at it.

Newton and Sprouse each turn in solid performances, but they both seem to be working at cross-purposes with the movie they’re acting in, one that continuously tries to force and shape them into a confining bubble that takes the most basic traits of a rom-com duo and affixes them to these characters who clearly want to be so much more than that. There’s nothing here that’s breaking any new boundaries for this rare subgenre, even if glimpses of something greater come in sporadic spits and bursts. The physical journey on top of the emotional journey these two characters go on to collect missing appendages for the creature’s body is itself a good idea, but it’s never given the payoff it needs to take flight in any innovative directions.

The good thing is that what “Lisa Frankenstein” shortchanges credible story beats for is an effective atmosphere that really nails the 80s vibe, similar to the way real 80s classics depicted that time period. When it’s not being abrasive, Williams wants you to really sit back and admire what she’s done to fill out the background of “Lisa Frankenstein,” from the look of Lisa’s high school to the boxy television sets, and all the colorful outfits in between. It’s too bad that this inspired backdrop never gets a chance to really prove its competence as the movie seems to care much more about making us care about its two leads than anything else. At its strongest, “Lisa Frankenstein” can be light and silly entertainment, but everything that it could have been goes frustratingly overlooked.

Now playing in theaters.