Is ‘Lisa Frankenstein’ a Future Misunderstood Cult Classic?

Looking forward to a time when I understand Diablo Cody's latest.

The writer Diablo Cody’s first produced screenplay after Juno won her an Oscar and skyrocketed her career was a satirical teen horror movie called Jennifer’s Body. Directed by the perpetually under-appreciated Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, The Invitation, Destroyer) and starring Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer’s Body used demonic possession as a metaphor for sexual trauma (there’s that whole “genre as a teaspoon of sugar” thing again) - but what really makes it stand out, I think, is its portrayal of adolescent female friendships and its dissection of the male gaze, both of which are far more nuanced than one might expect from such a film.

Both critics and audiences rejected Jennifer’s Body when it was released in the fall of 2009 - I think a lot of people, myself included, simply didn’t “get it” (and the film’s marketing campaign, which sold the movie as a more traditional Scream-esque outing and largely exploited the very male gaze the movie ridicules, probably didn’t help). Fortunately, it’s been re-evaluated in in the 15+ years since its release, and is now a cult classic that is often at the center of discussions about modern feminist cinema.

I would not be at all surprised if a similar fate awaits Lisa Frankenstein, Cody’s first foray into genre since Jennifer’s Body. The marketing for Lisa Frankenstein has also been misleading, and the central allegory is also complex. It’s entirely possible this thing is gonna fly over people’s heads.

To be fair to those people, I don’t think Lisa Frankenstein is as strong as Jennifer’s Body… but then, as I noted earlier, I initially underestimated Jennifer’s Body! Talk to me in 2039 and I may very well argue for Lisa Frankenstein as a far more significant film.

As in Jennifer’s Body, male aggression is the match that lights the fuse in Lisa Frankenstein. The story’s protagonist, played by Kathryn Newton, actually has the even-more-unfortunate surname Swallows, and not too long ago, she cowered in hiding while her mother (Jennifer Pierce Mathus) was slaughtered by an axe murderer wearing a cheap Bride of Frankenstein mask. The killer was never apprehended, and just six months later, her father (Joe Chrest) met and married Janet (Carla Gugino), a prototypical wicked stepmother. Lisa now finds herself completing her senior year at a new school in a new town, and being the “weird,” artsy, sensitive type (her unrequited crush is the editor of the school literary journal), her peers are rarely kind to her - her only real friend seems to be her cheerleader/beauty queen stepsister, Taffy (Liza Soberano), and even Taffy is superficial and prone to condescension (she asserts that Lisa could date a cute guy if he had bad skin, and she means it as a compliment).

This is all meant to explain why Lisa likes hanging out an abandoned cemetery, where she enjoys speaking to a gravestone bust of young man (Cole Sprouse) who died in 1887, his epitaph notes, without being wed.

One night, she goes to a party and drinks something that turns out to spiked; subsequently, her lab partner, a seemingly nice guy, tries to take advantage of her, groping her, putting her hand on his crotch, and accusing her of being a tease when she storms out of the room. Lisa stumbles to the gravestone and proclaims, “I wish I were with you.” She means the wish literally (i.e., she wishes she were dead), not figuratively (i.e., she has romantic interest in the dead guy), but for reasons that are never explained (and honestly aren’t important anyway), his grave is in fact struck by lightening, which raises from him the dead. Lisa is not initially attracted to a decaying corpse (go figure), but the Creature, as he’s credited, is devoted to her. Lisa Frankenstein is the only will-they-or-won’t-they date movie I’ve ever seen that involves the looming promise of necrophilia.

There are a lot of clear touchstones for Lisa Frankenstein, including Edward Scissorhands, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Heathers, Serial Mom, and even the films of Dario Argento. But there’s synthesizing an array of influences into something unique and there’s failing to have a grip on the story’s tone, and Lisa Frankenstein felt, to me at least, like it falls into the latter category: it’s too dry to be arch but too arch to be earnest. Because Jennifer’s Body takes place in something resembling the real world, it can sell its more emotional moments; but the reality of Lisa Frankenstein is so heightened from the very beginning that it holds the audience at arm’s length the entire time, which makes its more sincere scenes fall flat.

It’s worth noting that what Jennifer’s Body had that Lisa Frankenstein does not is Kusama, who had already directed two other features and some television by the time she helmed Cody’s script. Lisa Frankenstein, on the other hand, is the feature directorial debut of Zelda Williams (daughter of Robin), and while Williams certainly has visual pizzaz, it’s possible that a more experienced filmmaker might have better-wrangled all these disparate elements.

But I also believe that Cody should share in the blame: Lisa Frankenstein simply isn’t as strong of a script as Jennifer’s Body. Pound for pound, the jokes aren’t as good (although the good ones are very good), and, more importantly, the characters aren’t as well-developed.

On the plus side, Lisa Frankenstein, like Jennifer’s Body, excels at being an allegory. Taffy allows herself to be sexualized and seems only too-happy to walk that bizarre, lascivious line between the innocent “good girl” and the not-so-innocent “whore,” but Lisa refuses to conform to that standard; consequently, the men in her life don’t see her, either literally (her father often literally ignores her) or figuratively (her lab partner has no reason to believe she’s interested in him romantically or sexually). And no one seems particularly interested in helping her address her male-induced trauma - in fact, it almost seems like no one even really cares about catching her mother’s killer, period.

Enter the Creature, who is imperfect, to be sure, but is also doting and protective of Lisa in a way no other men are. Even if one were to argue that the Creature’s overall influence on Lisa is a net negative, we understand why Lisa would feel some connection to him, and how that connection allows him to have influence over her at all. You could read Lisa Frankenstein as love story, yes, but you could also read it as a story about grooming.

What you cannot do is dismiss Lisa Frankenstein out of hand. There is something to this film, even if it may doesn’t quite nail the dismount. Let’s discuss it again in like fifteen years, okay?

Lisa Frankenstein is in theaters February 9. Jennifer’s Body is currently streaming on Max.