Lisa Frankenstein Is Made Of More Stale Parts Than Its Creature
By Jonas Schwartz-Owen
The trailer for the new horror comedy Lisa Frankenstein presents a satirical, goofy horror film that melds ’80s fashions and sensibilities with modern meta styles. But the actual film delivers a mirthless slog that offers no new twists, no funny lines, and no tension -- the movie is a major disappointment. Only a sly, unhinged performance by Kathryn Newton is worth recommending.
In the late 1980s, tragic Lisa (Newton, Blockers) must move in with her cold father, hostile stepmother (Carla Gugino, The Haunting of Hill House) and popular, mean-girl stepsister (Liza Soberano) after her mother has been brutally murdered. Practically invisible at her high school, she spends her time at the local cemetery mooning over a grave of an 19th-century boy (Cole Sprouse,Riverdale). When a lightning storm brings him to life, Lisa comforts him and teaches him the modern world. After he starts a killing spree, she sews body parts of his victims to make him a “real boy.”
Written by Oscar winner Diablo Cody (Juno, as well as the cult horror/comedy Jennifer’s Body), Lisa Frankenstein has elements that could make for broad parody, but the script does a lazy job, following the predictable path without rewarding the audience with anything surprising. We’ve seen so many fish-out-of-water movies, as well as ugly-duckling-turns-into-a-psychopathic-swan movies, that this film really needs to raise the bar, but the bar remains firmly planted at ground level.
This is the feature directorial debut of Zelda Williams (the late, great Robin’s daughter), and her pacing and stylizations could have used some of the zaniness that made her father a genius. She does film one black & white fantasy sequence early in the movie that evokes the music videos of ’80s New Wave artists Siouxsie And The Banshees, but for the most part, this film could have been shot for television.
Newton, who was delightfully insane as both a wallflower high school student and a gleeful serial killer in the imaginative horror/comedy Freaky, once again shines, especially when her character embraces a goth look and blasé attitude. Her silent stares at other characters lift the character from the flatness of the page. Sprouse appears to have studied hard to perfect the walk (or rather, the stiff drag) of a dead creature, but he’s not really given much character. Gugino, who stole the Netflix series Fall of the House of Usher from all her talented co-stars, could have had fun with her evil stepmom role, but the performance also felt rote and perfunctory.
Lisa Frankenstein feels forced the entire time, like a monster trying to fit into the modern world. I don’t expect even angry villagers to care enough to chase this monster down. For a better spoof of the ’80s and horror, catch Totally Killer on Amazon starring Kiernan Shipka (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) as a time-traveler tracking down her mother’s murderer. Everything missing here in Lisa Frankenstein – thrills, laughs, surprises – are given out freely in Totally Killer like Halloween candy at the cool neighbor’s house.
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