Film Review: "Lisa Frankenstein" is a Glorious and Enjoyable Mess
What it lacks in coherence the new film from Zelda Williams and Diablo Cody more than makes up for in charm, fan, and a quarter of fantastic performances.
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Warning: Spoilers are ahead!
There’s something uniquely pleasurable about the horror comedy, particularly when it’s done well. As Owen Gleiberman writes in his review of Lisa Frankenstein, “A good horror comedy is a genre smoothie that wakes you right up.” Unfortunately, Gleiberman has few good things to say about the debut film from Zelda Williams (with a screenplay by Diablo Cody). Though I do think the Variety critic raises some good points in his review, for the most part I think that the film is a fun, if uneven, romance, a sharp and jagged little pill just in time for Valentine’s Day.
After an opening animation scene shows the unfortunate demise of a 19th century young man, the story picks up in 1989, where young Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) is trying to pick up the pieces of her life after seeing her mother murdered by an ax-wielding maniac. Though she has the support of her well-meaning and bubbly stepsister Taffy (Liza Soberano), her wicked stepmotherJanet is a true tyrant, while her inept father Dale (Joe Chrest) is as useless as he is oblivious. All this changes when a freak lightning storm brings the dead youth from the beginning (played by Cole Sprouse) back to life. Once he connects with Lisa, whose desire for him seems to have played a part in bringing him back from the grave, various hijinks ensue as they find replacement body parts for him and start falling in love.
I have to say that Kathryn Newton is just sublime as Lisa Swallows. She perfectly captures the angst and discombobulation of being a young woman in late ‘80s America, particularly that of a kid who happened to watch her mother get murdered. As the film progresses and she discovers new things about herself, she slowly becomes more assured, yet also strangely more unhinged, as the events set in motion by the resurrection of the Creature–to say nothing of their procuring of more body parts for him–start to spin wildly out of control. It’s a pitch-perfect performance from Newton, who knows when to bring out the pathos and when to let her freak flag fly. And, to top it all off, her wardrobe is ~chef’s kiss~ perfection.
Cole Sprouse is likewise perfectly cast, bringing a certain fragile, Byronic beauty to the Creature even when he is still more rotting flesh than anything else. Given that he doesn’t speak until the very end, Sprouse has to rely on his face and his shambolic body to convey emotion, and he more than succeeds. There’s a certain soulfulness to his eyes that is quite enchanting, and I found myself falling for him far before Lisa does (she spends much of the film harboring feelings for a caddish aesthete who has no interest in her).
For me, as for many other critics, two of the other highlights of the film are Carla Gugino and Liza Soberano. Gugino is of course a horror mainstay, thanks in large part to her starring roles in the Netflix series made by Mike Flanagan. Here she really sinks her teeth into the role of evil stepmother, relishing every poisonously sweet bit of dialogue, and it’s glorious to watch her let her be such an unapologetic bitch, someone who is more than happy to imprison her stepdaughter in a mental hospital. Beneath her adoration of her trinkets and ornaments and other superficial accouterments of 1980s housewifery–including her Precious Moments–there resides a truly dark and evil heart.
In some ways, poor Taffy gets the short end of the stick. Soberano brings a peppy perky energy to the role and, remarkably, makes Taffy into someone who genuinely has her new sister’s best interests at heart, even if her own cheerleader worldview is as far removed from Lisa’s outcast persona as can be imagined. There’s something sweet and tender about the way that Soberano subverts the usual ‘80s mean teen cheerleader archetype. Though she has some notable lapses in judgment–including sleeping with Lisa’s crush after her mother disappears (killed by the Creature, as it happens, who proceeds to replace his missing ear with her own)--for the most part she really is a good person. It’s just a shame that the last we see of her is her stumbling into the road, having been traumatized by the Creature’s murdering of her ill-judged paramour.
The fumbling of Taffy’s story and the ambiguity of its tone speaks to a wider problem with the film. It seems as if it can’t quite decide what kind of movie it is, though there are moments when it perfectly nails the fusion of horror and comedy, such as when The Creature emasculates the philandering and remarkably shallow Michael (Lisa’s crush) sending his genitals flying into a garbage can. Everything about this scene is exquisitely ridiculous, from the intent and murderous look on the Creature’s face to Lisa’s mingle rapture at seeing him willing to kill for her sake and, of course, the cock and balls doing a pirouette. If every moment in the film had managed to achieve this finely-tuned balance I think I would have been more unequivocal in my love of it.
Furthermore, it has to be said that the narrative of this film doesn’t always make a ton of sense, even for a film that’s about a young man who comes back from the dead to woo a teenager. Take, for example, the moment when the Creature manages to drive a car as if he’s been doing it all his life. Now, normally I’m not one to nitpick these sorts of things, but unless I missed some important piece of exposition I don’t really see a dead man from over a century ago could possibly know how to drive a car, let alone do so with such aplomb. More importantly, the story doesn’t really give the two leads enough time to actually bond for their eventual love to make sense or to feel earned. Instead, it often feels as if this is just the point toward which the plot is moving and thus they have to just…end up there, however that manages to come about. And don’t even get me started on the mechanics of the tanning bed, which somehow has the power to not only reattach dead body parts to the Creature and fill them with life but also manages to make the rest of him look more lively as well. Sometimes, you just have to take the films’ word for it, I guess.
Overall, I very much enjoyed Lisa Frankenstein. Like Saltburn, a film I also very much enjoyed, what it lacks in narrative coherence it more than makes up for in that nebulous thing known as “vibes.” It’s the kind of film that doesn’t encourage you to think too carefully or too long about what it is that you’re seeing. Instead, you should just buckle up and enjoy the ride. Moreover, there’s something quite powerful about the central message of Lisa Frankenstein, which proposes that no matter how weird you are you will always be able to find true love, even if that happens to be a dead guy from the 19th century who has been brought back to life thanks to a graveside promise and a lucky lightning strike.