LISA FRANKENSTEIN movie poster | ©2024 Focus Features

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Liza Soberano, Henry Eikenberry, Bryce Romero, Carla Gugino, Joe Chrest
Writer: Diablo Cody
Director: Zelda Williams
Distributor: Focus Features
Release Date: February 9, 2024

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, director Zelda Williams and writer Diablo Cody deliver the new period rom zom com LISA FRANKENSTEIN.

After a delightful shadow puppet opening credit sequence that details the tragedy of nineteenth-century gentleman Frankenstein (Cole Sprouse) – not a scientist here, just a lovelorn musician – we get to our live-action story.

It’s the ‘80s. Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) is a teen traumatized by the murder of her mother by a masked slasher. The killer is notable for, unlike pretty much any other masked slasher onscreen, disappearing for the rest of the movie. LISA FRANKENSTEIN has a few other aspects like this, most notably our growing unanswered questions about what Frankenstein was like when alive.

A year later (we eventually find out it’s 1989), Lisa’s benign but oblivious widowed dad Dale (Joe Chrest) has remarried tightly-wound psych nurse Janet (Carla Gugino) and relocated the family to Janet’s town. Janet’s teen daughter Taffy (Liza Soberano) is welcoming if a bit daffy.

Lisa has a bit of a crush on student newspaper editor Michael Trent (Henry Eikenberry). Still, she prefers hanging out in a nearby abandoned cemetery to socializing. Lisa is especially drawn to Frankenstein’s grave, which is adorned with a sculpture of the handsome young man.

Then there’s a lightning strike that breaks Frankenstein out of his grave. Sensing that Lisa has been the one visiting him, he goes to her home. In his present condition, he’s fairly alarming (and mute), but once Lisa figures out who he is, she sets about cleaning him up and eventually replacing a couple of missing body parts. Frankenstein immediately falls for this maiden fair, but Lisa sees him as more of a confidante because of her interest in the fully alive Michael. Who will she choose? And what’s going to happen once bodies start piling up?

In a lot of ways, LISA FRANKENSTEIN resembles an ‘80s teen farce, with Lisa constantly having to hide Frankenstein from family and friends, giving him a makeover, sending mixed signals, and so on.

The film takes on its own personality with various murders, plus giving Frankenstein a look that increasingly resembles Stephen Sondheim’s concept of Sweeney Todd (both stage and screen versions). There’s also something of EDWARD SCISSORHANDS here in the satirizing of ‘80s suburbia, though Frankenstein and Lisa are much more proactive characters that those of that earlier film.

On one hand, writer Cody and director Williams set a very consistent, moderately stylized tone. Stitched-on body parts notwithstanding, LISA FRANKENSTEIN is all of a piece. Williams has visual style to spare, referencing all sorts of old movies while creating something beautiful and iconic.

On the other hand, LISA FRANKENSTEIN’s manner won’t be to everybody’s taste. This is one of those movies (like some of its ‘80s forebears) where everybody, including the leads, is comedically insensitive to others. Stepmother Janet of course is meant to be self-involved to the point of barbarism, but she’s so exhausting to watch (no fault of Gugino’s, she’s doing exactly what the material calls for) that it’s hard to muster the energy to deal with lesser versions of this trait in other characters. Lisa and Michael are “cool,” but nobody seems especially bright.

Newton commits to every turn of Lisa’s personality, and Sprouse gives a wonderfully humorous silent performance. Soberano finds affecting heart in the bubbly Taffy.

LISA FRANKENSTEIN has all the necessary elements of a cult classic. Which, again, means it won’t be for everyone.

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