For those seeking to dig up their long-buried romantic side, Lisa Frankenstein arrives at the perfect time: Valentine’s Day. And, although it was released during what was called the worst box office weekend for movies since Covid, one can only hope that the receipts will pick up (or at least stay the same) for screenwriter Diablo Cody’s latest signature offering in the coming weeks. Not to mention picking up for the sake of director Zelda Williams’ (yes, Robin Williams’ daughter) debut feature (having previously directed the short films, Shrimp and Kappa Kappa Die), who has just as much riding on the success of the film as Cody. Except that “success,” when applied to a movie like Lisa Frankenstein, can definitely not be measured in box office returns, so much as “finding its audience.”
When Cody hoped that would happen with 2009’s now-respected horror-comedy, Jennifer’s Body, it didn’t. And that was, in large part, due to some very poorly-executed marketing plans, ones that relied heavily on playing up Megan Fox’s “sexiness” rather than the actual story. While JB might have been maligned at the time (just as Lisa Frankenstein is now), Cody stated, “If people hadn’t rediscovered Jennifer’s Body, I would not have written Lisa Frankenstein. With that whole area, that genre, I kind of felt unwelcome in it, because I had flopped so hard on my last attempt.” Thank “God” those feelings went away, and Cody was able to bring us another campy “coming-of-rage” (as Lisa Frankenstein is called) tale that reworks Mary Shelley’s classic to the advantage of a teen girl in the “mad scientist” role.
Except, in true underlying discriminatory fashion, Lisa doesn’t create her monster through science (so much for a chem lab scene), but rather, by simple wishing…while tripped out on PCP-laced alcohol. From there, a Victorian-inspired dream sequence ensues (giving the likes of Yorgos Lanthimos and Michel Gondry a run for their money), featuring Lisa (Kathryn Newton) in a dress that reflects the 1800s period she’s flashing back to…minus the giant Pabst Blue Ribbon logo painted on the front of it. In fact, the hand-painted logo on that dress is what got costume designer Meagan McLaughlin the job. And it seemed to be the job of a lifetime in terms of getting to rework some of her favorite looks from the decade, which are overtly inspired by both Madonna and Winona Ryder (80s queens on opposite aesthetic spectrums, yet somehow two sides of the same coin, kind of like horror and comedy).
Considering that Cody was recently working on a script with Madonna for her since-shelved biopic, perhaps it’s fair to say that the pop star has remained on Cody’s brain—which undoubtedly shines through in this movie. McLaughlin (whose meticulous attention to detail on the wardrobe front cannot be underestimated) also admitted she was “obsessed with Madonna in 1984, and you don’t grow out of that obsession. [That’s why] there’s a hint of Madonna-esque Like a Virgin fashion in [the movie].” More than just a hint, mind you. Except Lisa appears mostly in black lace rather than white. As for the obvious Tim Burton flair of the film (including the house and neighborhood exteriors), it’s in large part because of how much Lisa reminds one of Ryder’s characters in Beetlejuice and Heathers, with McLaughlin adding, “Winona Ryder is a huge influence for me in that period, and we were absolutely inspired by her costumes in Beetlejuice and Heathers. I had taken a screenshot from Heathers of Winona in a gray top with a black skirt with suspenders, and that inspired one of Lisa’s looks…”
And if Lisa is Winona Ryder-inspired, then there’s no denying the Creature (Cole Sprouse) is heavily Johnny Depp-inspired. Particularly his Edward Scissorhands era (which also included Ryder). A mood board for the costumes looked not only to Buster Keaton, but, surely, also Depp in his early 90s movies. After all, 1989 was on the cusp of that decade, and it took until at least 1995 to fully shake an all-out 80s tinge that still lingered heavily in most people’s sartorial choices. And, talking of 1989, that was also the year Heathers was released in theaters and changed the landscape of teen movies forever. Particularly when it came to actually speaking candidly (and comically) on what it meant to be a teen girl. For the satirical purposes of Daniel Waters’ script, the murderous rage so many women at that age feel became literal as Veronica Sawyer (Ryder) becomes involved with a rebellious “James Dean type,” named, appropriately, J.D. (Christian Slater), who is willing to carry out the murders she otherwise wouldn’t. Hence, the indelible voiceover of Veronica saying, “Dear Diary, my teen angst bullshit has a body count.” Other absurdist lines delivered glibly include, “Great pâté, Mom, but I gotta motor if I wanna be ready for that funeral” and “Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?” (that one delivered by Heather Chandler, not Veronica). Lisa begins to deliver such outlandish lines in a similarly blasé manner. That’s all part of the genre. And so is the hormonally-driven lust of crushing hard over a boy.
For Lisa, the J.D. in her life turns out to be the Creature, who immediately becomes emotionally attached to his “maker,” defending her at all costs from anyone he sees affecting her negatively. At the top of that list is her new stepmother, the Nurse Ratched-esque Janet (Carla Gugino, relishing a villainous role as usual). Convinced she’s the source for all that is good and holy in Lisa and her father Dale’s (Joe Chrest) life, Janet has little patience for what she perceives as Lisa’s “acting out” ways. And it isn’t long before she makes it her mission to paint Lisa as “crazy” enough to be locked up, which would leave her with Dale and her own perfect cheerleader daughter, Taffy (Liza Soberano).
Surprisingly, though, Taffy is actually nice to Lisa, making it a point to treat her like a real sister, defending her from naysayers and taking her out to parties. Including the first “rager” of the year, where she encounters the “cerebral” (“He’s in a wheelchair?” Taffy asks in regard to that word) boy she’s been crushing on, Michael Trent (Henry Eikenberry). And also, unfortunately, his girlfriend, Tamara (Joey Harris). The latter being the Goth Lite that Lisa will soon outdo with her own theatrical aesthetics (ones clearly inspired by the bands she loves: Bauhaus, The Cure, Joy Division, etc.—the only nod to “goth” [before it got rebranded as “emo”] missing from that era is The Smiths). It’s Tamara that fucks her over with the old reverse psychology trap of handing her a cup, quickly retracting it and saying something to the effect of, “Silly me, I should’ve known better to than to think you knew how to party.” Lisa then takes the cup from her, not wanting to come across like a prude in front of Michael. She might have been better off upholding her “virginal” image, though, because the PCP is about to take her on a wild ride.
To that end, without her hallucinogenic journey, she not only wouldn’t have seen what an asshole her lab partner, Doug (Bryce Romero), is as he puts his hand on her chest after pretending he just wants to “help” her, but she also wouldn’t have been able to “astral project,” so to speak, to the Creature’s gravesite and work the “magic” that will set him free, liberate him from the ground.
“I wish I was with you,” Lisa tells the bust atop his gravestone while imagining herself in the bachelors’ graveyard. When that wish actually comes true (because apparently it’s as simple as “ask and you shall receive,” paired with a lightning bolt jolt), she explains to the Creature that what she really meant by that was she wanted to be dead, too (how very Lana Del Rey declaring, “I wish I was dead already”). Down there in the ground with him because the living are such assholes. Her bluntness prompts him to start crying, leading Lisa to the realization that she must do everything in her power so that he doesn’t cry again because his tears smell fouler than the corpse itself. And even when he starts to look more and more like a viable character from Less Than Zero, his stench still doesn’t go away. Such is the drawback of “building a boyfriend” out of a dead body. Or, as the various taglines go, “If you can’t meet your perfect boyfriend…make him,” “Dig up someone special” and “She’s slaying. He’s decaying” (side note: Cody was gunning for a tagline that went, “You always dismember your first”). Harsher critics of Lisa Frankenstein will accuse the movie itself of decaying from the very first scene. Indeed, less open-minded reviews have touted such scathing assessments in their titles as, “Lisa Frankenstein Will Make You Miss Tim Burton. A Lot.” or “Lisa Frankenstein: There’s nothing animated about this corpse comedy.”
“Corpse comedy” being, in truth, a genre that really only Weekend at Bernie’s can lay claim to. “Zom-com” is, instead, the term that’s been bandied around to describe a film like this. And it also applies to 2013’s Warm Bodies, which riffs on Romeo and Juliet. In a sense, the Frankenstein story is a kind of Romeo and Juliet narrative…when the gender of the “Dr. Frankenstein” in the equation is swapped and the “monster” she’s created starts to fall in love with her. As for the “mechanism” used to keep bringing the Creature more and more to life (therefore, more and more “on her wavelength”—no crimped hair pun intended), Cody might have gotten some inspo from another 80s-loving movie: Hot Tub Time Machine. Sure, the tanning bed might not be a portal through the decades (like Back to the Future’s Delorean as well), but it’s an equally 80s-centric “luxury” that ends up being wielded for paranormal purposes.
With the boon of the tanning bed to bring a jolt of life to his new limbs, the only obstacle for the Creature in securing Lisa’s love is the aforementioned Michael Trent, who reels the anti-heroine in with his compliments of her poetry (macabre, of course). He’s the editor-in-chief of the high school lit mag, after all, so he must have taste (in fact, his self-aggrandizement over that taste will come into play in a big way later on, when Lisa has the revelation that only he can have taste in “cool” things, not his girlfriend of the moment). Second to that, the Creature is dealing with just one more noticeable, er, deficit: he’s missing a few key parts. Namely, a hand, an ear and what some women would arguably call the most important appendage of all. Though Lisa assures him that’s actually the thing that least makes a man, well, a man. Nonetheless, that doesn’t stop her from admitting she no longer wants to be like a virgin. She wants to fuck, and soon. Especially with her and the Creature’s body count piling higher by the day (they’re sort of like Dexter Morgan in that they justify their killings by deeming their victims as “bad people”).
Lisa knows it’s only a matter of time until the police come after her. Which feels like a full-circle moment considering her own mother was brutally killed by an ax murderer (a detail and flashback that seems like Cody’s nod to 80s slasher movies in general). Now she’s the one toting an ax around town, at one point trying to convince herself that she might be able to kill her own creation. But she could never—not just because he’s become both an extension of her and her best friend, but because they’ve obviously fallen in love somewhere along the distorted line between the land of the living and the land of the dead.
Starting with Lisa’s visits to Bachelor’s Grove cemetery, as a matter of fact. And while Victorians don’t actually seem to have a tradition of burying single men in their own special cemetery, there does happen to be a supposedly haunted graveyard called that in Illinois (that has nothing to do with a “bachelors only clientele,” mind you). Cody herself is from said state, specifically the Chicago suburb of Lemont. And, being that so many 80s movies are centered on suburban teen angst (thanks, in large part to Cody’s unwitting mentor, John Hughes, a fellow former suburban teen who spent his adolescence in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook), it’s evident Cody knows how to convey that in Lisa Frankenstein. And also, of course, Jennifer’s Body. In point of fact, Cody has said that she would like to think Lisa and Jennifer exist in the same cinematic universe (additionally mentioning her hope of rebooting the film as a TV series).
Sort of the way it seems, unspokenly, that all of John Hughes’ teen movies do. One of which, Weird Science, Cody cites as a particular influence on Lisa Frankenstein (though not Lisa Frank, who founded her company of the same name in 1979 and subsequently served as a school supplies-oriented mascot for a generation of girls). Indeed, the “revived” woman (actually created from a computer and a doll) in Weird Science was named Lisa. This being one of those quintessential 80s names for girls. And what’s even more quintessential about the 80s, as Cody reminds us, is that romantic devotion was revitalized to an almost Victorian extent (as manifested in the music of some of the aforementioned bands).
Accordingly, Lisa writes the Creature a “farewell” note that reads, “Death is temporary. I’ll love you forever.” To be sure, Lisa Frankenstein mirrors that level of wistfulness and romanticness (something Mary Shelley knew all about) for its entirety. The kind of romance we’ve, by now, been taught to mock or write off as being of the “Billy Bob and Angelina variety.” Intense to the point of vials of blood being involved. Or, in this case, limbs. Thus, the intensity of Lisa and the Creature’s bond is only further cemented when the latter cuts off a certain boy’s dick and has her sew it on his own Ken doll-esque area. Needless to say, it definitely helps that Lisa happens to be a skilled seamstress.
In the final moments of Lisa Frankenstein, the viewer is treated to the sight of a now-capable-of-speaking Creature reading aloud from a book of Percy Shelley’s poems (namely, “To Mary”) on a bench (in a manner that sort of mimics the bench-reading scene from Notting Hill). As he reads, a bandaged-up, undead Lisa rests “comfortably” on his lap. The Frankenstein roles have now reversed, in a fashion similar to what happens at the end of Frankenhooker (which, although released in 1990, very much smacks of the year it was actually filmed: 1989). Except that Lisa is no longer the one truly in control. Perhaps this is a subtle statement, on Cody’s part, about what happens when a woman falls in love: she ends up surrendering some (if not all) of her power. Unless the guy, like J.D. in Heathers, proves himself to be a complete twat and a girl has to take that power back, Veronica Sawyer-style.
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