For anyone whoever watched Juno, screenwriter Diablo Cody was an obvious horror fan who’s numerous references included nods to Dario Argento and Herschell Gordon Lewis, yet when Cody put pen to paper to orchestrate a full on fright film in the form of 2009s Jennifer’s Body, things went somewhat awry. The years were ultimately kind to the horror comedy helmed by Karyn Kusama as it subsequently achieved something of cult following who loudly appreciated it’s high points; however, fifteen years later, Cody has decided to try again, penning the screenplay to Zelda Williams’ Lisa Frankenstein.
Can this overtly more comic attempt at the Frankenstein story manage to harness the screen writer’s love of female angst and big horror swings in a way that won’t take a whole, bloody, decade to be recognised? Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of the issues with Jennifer’s Body have been resurrected once again.
It’s 1989 and moody, near mute Lisa Swallows attempts to negotiate the cruel world of high school while trying to balance being a reviled outsider in her own home. You see, two years earlier, her mother was slaughtered by a roving axe murderer and while her constantly distracted father has moved on and remarried the highly strung and boundlessly narcissistic Janet who obviously openly disapproves of Lisa’s weirdness.
Lisa gets a form of respite from her self-obsessed, but well-meaning, cheerleader, step sister, Taffy, butcher only really finds peace at a local, deserted cemetery, reclining among the headstones and doing grave rubbings as 80s goths apparently did. After being invited to a party, getting drugged and narrowly avoiding sexual assault, a distraught Lisa returns to said cemetery as pours out her heart to the resting place of a young man who expired in 1837 in especially romantically tragic circumstances.
Thanks to a bizarre storm and a well place bolt of green lightning, the man is resurrected into a moldy zombie and after visiting an initially horrified Lisa, the two bond after a hot shower and a quick change of wardrobe and soon the teen realises she may have the perfect man in her life. However, you don’t befriend a zombified boy from the Victorian era without there being a few consequences and the overprotective “Creature” soon over steps his mark a little after killing Lisa’s deplorable stepmother after she gives another award winning display of passive aggressive abuse. Discovering that the Creature can replace his missing body parts from his victims with some thread and a ho in a malfunctioning tanning bed, Lisa realises that she can restore her new boy toy into something approximating a living being, the two target their school’s less desirable members in order to make him whole.
While I probably shouldn’t be comparing Jennifer’s Body and Lisa Frankenstein too much (despite their obvious similarities), I can’t help but think that this latest horror comedy from Cody is most likely going to have the same fate as the last. I mean, being cursed to be somewhat misunderstood and relatively underseen hasn’t exactly been the kiss of death to other films that eventually found a devoted audience, it’s a shame that Cody’s written another genre piece that seems destined to dismissed as just another oddity.
The issue is that Lisa Frankenstein simply can’t quite decide what it really wants to be as it straddles the super stylised visuals of an early Tim Burton film and the vicious sensibilities of a far darker teen flick such as Heathers. Director Zelda Williams (daughter of Robin) creates a lush, exaggerated world constantly lit with goth visuals and garish neon as everyone engages with witty, throwback, 80s teenspeak like the last forty years hasn’t happened. However, as reliably snappy as the dialogue is (“He doesn’t play sports, he’s cerebral.” “He’s in a wheelchair?”) and despite featuring some neat touches (whenever the rotted Creature sheds tears it smells like “a hot toilet at a carnival”), Lisa Frankenstein struggles to hit any really laughs, instead delivering a string of mild chuckles.
The actors all play their part well with Katheryn Newton proving that with Freaky and the upcoming Abigail, comedy horror movies seem to suit her as well as a expansive goth wardrobe. In fact, one of the main reasons that the movie works as well as it does is down to the fact that she really does seem like a natural successor to the like of past teen queens such as Winona Ryder and she keeps the character engaging, even when indulging is some shifty shit. Elsewhere, she’s given able support by Cole Sprouse, whose Creature not only looks the living spit of Johnny Depp in Sweeny Todd, but he manages to be dashing and vunerable despite barely having any dialogue except the odd growl and Lisa Soberano puts a suprisingly likable spin on the usual vacuous cheerleader type by giving Taffy a big (if misguided) heart to counteract her empty head. All this, along with a cameo from Carla Gugino, who over acts so wildly as a bitchy stepmother genuinely had me worried that the tendons in her throat will snap like a strained fishing line, will make you wonder why the movie isn’t funnier, but thankfully its smarts pulls it through the most of its uneven tone.
The best way to describe that tone is with Williams’ approach to the violence that renders the bloodletting relatively bloodless, yet still finds time to stick in a severed penis joke in the finale while “Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” by Jojo serenades the severed member as its shadow twirls through the air. Elsewhere, some gross out humor involving some of the Creature’s more slimier excretions land firmly in the realms of adolescent gross out. It’s funny, but it just goes to show how uncertain the filmmakers seem to be when it comes to tackling Diablo Cody’s bizarre, coming of age tale that once again, seems to be too weird for the teen set, yet too soft for the horror crowd.
Still, there’s plenty of fun to be had watching this gleefully strange tale go through its wilfully odd throes and while it doesn’t quite manage to equal the kind of films it’s obviously trying to emulate, its killer soundtrack and unrestrained quirkiness is sure to eventually round up a gaggle of devoted followers.
To others, however, Lisa Frankenstein will unfortunately be no more than an uneven assemblage or random parts…
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