On a snowy Fat Tuesday, the Horror Honey and I celebrated the 22nd anniversary of our first date by dragging our bodies out of the house and to the moving picture show to see Lisa Frankenstein. The film stars Kathryn Newton (Lady Bird and Freaky) as Lisa (Swallows is her last name here not Frankenstein), a high school student whose mother is killed when a serial killer breaks into her home. A little while later her dad gets remarried to Janet, played by Carla Gugino (Night at the Museum and Watchmen), who is a nurse in a mental hospital. Lisa also has a step-sister named Taffy, Liza Soberano (Alone/Together and My Ex and Whys), who is a beauty queen, a cheerleader, and prom queen. After Lisa's dad marries Janet, Lisa has to go live in a new town and attend a new school.
Surprisingly, Taffy and Lisa actually get along well with Taffy going out of her way to try and get her new sister to be accepted in her new school. Lisa works as a seamstress in a tailor's shop. She has a crush on a boy in her new school named Michael who is also the editor of the school paper. Michael loves the poems Lisa presents to him for publication. One day, at an abandoned cemetery in her new town, Lisa does some grave rubbings. One of the rubbings she does is on a monument with a statue of a young man on it. The name on the statue is Frankenstein. Lisa develops a one sided relationship with the statue as she goes there often and talks to him. At the beginning of the new school year, Taffy takes Lisa to a party. At the party, Lisa, on a dare, drinks from a glass that contains some spiked alcohol.
While Lisa is heavily under the influence of whatever the drink was spiked with, Lisa's lab partner Doug, Bryce Romero (Maggie and Eagle and the Albatross), tries to help her by holding her hair back while she pukes, to taking her somewhere quiet to sober up. Of course this leads to a bedroom where Doug grabs Lisa's chest and puts her hand on his crotch. Lisa is able to get away from Doug and heads for the cemetery. Right after she leaves, a huge bolt of lightening strikes the cemetery. Later, Lisa is left home alone and The Creature, as it is called in the credits and played by Cole Sprouse (Five Feet Apart and Big Daddy), breaks in and chases Lisa around the house. I gotta say when I was watching the film, I had no idea who Cole Sprouse was, in fact it wasn't until I looked him up on IMDb that I realized he was one of the boys playing opposite Adam Sandler in Big Daddy.
Sprouse gives off some serious Johnny Depp from Edward Scissorhands vibes. Now that I think about it Newton reminds me a little of Winona Ryder as well. The Ryder character she reminds me of isn't the one she played in Scissorhands however, but rather the character she plays in Beetlejuice. I guess what I'm ultimately saying here is the movie reminds me of a Tim Burton film. Is that good or bad? Honestly, I dunno but I'm not mad at it. Lisa slowly realizes that the creature she is fighting off is the animated corpse of the young man from the cemetery. The Creature is more zombie than Frankenstein monster. He is missing both ears, one of his hands, and cannot talk. After that, people around town start to go missing and then things really start getting weird.
Lisa Frankenstein is written by Diablo Cody who also wrote Juno and Jennifer's Body and directed by Zelda Williams, daughter of Robin Williams in her full length feature debut. Also starring is the music we hear in the movie which is taken right from the 1980's. At one time or another my entire record collection from that era is included here. Which, for those of you keeping score, I would have been around 21 years of age myself. Sometimes music is just there and often taken for granted, here, the music is often a driving force in the film. Songs take us not only from scene to scene but also they play a part in molding scenes and making them even better than they are to begin with. Is it perfect? No, and without giving away spoilers, I cannot go into it further why I deducted points. Most of it is tiny details but they add.
As The Horror Honey pointed out to me early on during the film, this is a chick flick, and I'm OK with that as it's not the first one I've seen. I'm not tricked into seeing many though, like I sort of was here because this is NOT a horror movie as I thought. I knew nothing but the title going into it but figured it was at least a horror comedy. It's more of a comedy romance or a romcom if you will. With some roots in horror though as it definitely pays homage to Frankenstein as well as zombie films. In fact Romero's Day of the Dead can be seen playing on the TV in Lisa's house. I will say another thing about the film and that is it really pissed me off for a split second. When Lisa's father, Joe Chrest (Gifted and The Perfect Date), asks his step-daughter Taffy if she wants to go to Fuddruckers for dinner it hit that nostalgic spot in my heart that made me miss the 80's. It also reminded me I can't go to Fuddruckers anymore because there are none near me now. But, I'm OK with it now and I will gladly give Lady Frankenstein three and a half tears that smell like a hot toilet at a carnival out of five.
