Diablo Cody, famed screenwriter of Juno and the cult classic Jennifer's Body is back with her latest effort; Lisa Frankenstein. Directed by Zelda Williams, daughter of the late great Robin Williams, Lisa Frankenstein follows a teenager named Lisa who recently is having trouble adjusting to a new school and new life after her father remarries, only to start crushing on a corpse from a local graveyard. What ensues is a whole bunch of hi-jinx that had had me cackling with laughter for basically the whole runtime.
Set in 1989, Williams and Cody are clearly having a blast paying homage to the greats of the 80s as well as Universal monster horror of the 1930s. Stylistically this feels very late-80s/early 90s Tim Burton, basically emphasizing the styles of the times with a bit of morbidity to create something offbeat in the best way. Obviously the premise of Lisa falling for a dead guy falls very in line with some of Burton's work, but Cody and Williams really make it their own brining a female perspective to the forefront which allows for some hilarious moments that you just wouldn't get from a male writing/directing team. There's a scene where Romero's Day of the Dead is playing which the dead guy (played by Cole Sprouse) is certainly evoking, but Williams has also mention films like Death Becomes Her and Weird Science as inspirations which you can see through the style and story. There is also one sequence in black and white that nails the Universal monster style which I absolutely loved, and Lisa's bedroom is covered in drawings and posters from those films which I think were great in subtly characterizing her through set design.
Of all the homage to the 80s though I think the best comes through Katherine Newton's lead performance at Lisa. I am a massive Winona Ryder fan, and Newton delivers something that almost finds itself between Ryder's performances in Heathers and Beetlejuice. Heathers is one of my favourites of all time so seeing a performance, and honestly tone of the film in general so close to such an iconic dark comedy really made my day. Even Newton's costumes begin to evoke those films, and as a whole the costumes do a great job of taking the 80s style and doing something interesting with it to help build the character of Lisa as well as the people around her. Aside from the Winona Ryder comparisons, I also just really love what Newton brought to this role. I've liked her in a lot of different projects, but in this she really carries the film with a performance that balances broodiness and quirkiness extremely well and brings the perfect kind of physicality to the character. Cole Sprouse is also pretty solid, it's a very physical performance as he only has a few lines, but his physicality does evoke some great zombie performances of the past which I enjoyed.
Aside from Newton and Sprouse, the two most prominent performances are Carla Gugino and Liza Soberano as Lisa's step-mom and step-sister. Any time Carla Gugino is on screen I'm here for it, and seeing her kinda step into an evil step-mom role was really fun. She isn't groundbreaking or anything, but I thought she brought some mean spirited fun to it. Soberano honestly really wowed me. Her performance and character as a whole is really refreshing, as she genuinely wants to be a great sister to Lisa, and Soberano's performance is incredibly endearing making every kind moment from her character feel earned. She's also really funny which is a big plus.
If I were to go into negatives, there is a point towards the end where the film starts to lose some steam, but it then quickly delivers one of the film's funniest moments and gets the train rolling again. It also is a bit messy narratively, however I had way too much fun to really care. This is a hilarious dark comedy that really checks a lot of boxes for what I enjoy that I don't see in modern movies too often, nailing both a Heathers-esque tone as well as a Tim Burton tone but with a female twist that I love. Even taking into a account the fact that this is almost egregiously up my alley, the response from critics is kind of baffling to me as it currently sits at 49% on Rotten Tomatoes.
If you saw the trailer or poster of this (amazing poster by the way) and thought it looked fun, I say check it out. I had a truly fantastic time watching this and that critic score is just baffling to me, it's a fun and fresh spin on some of the 80s greats and I think a lot of people will have a ton of fun with it like I did.
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